Ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio Must Pay $475,000 Over Misused Public Funds
What to Know
- Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio must pay a $475,000 fine levied against him for misusing public funds on a police security detail during his failed White House bid, a judge ruled this week, dismissing the ex-mayor’s legal challenge as “perplexing” and “entirely baseless.”
- The decision blocks de Blasio’s latest effort to erase the hefty fine issued against him by the city’s ethics board in 2023.
- The ruling leaves de Blasio on the hook for a $320,000 in airfare and other travel costs incurred by his security detail during the four-month campaign, which he launched in 2019 while serving his second term as mayor. He will also have to pay a fine of $5,000 for each of the security detail’s 31 out-of-state trips, amounting to $155,000.
A judge has ruled that former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio must pay a $475,000 fine for misusing public funds on a police security detail during his failed White House bid. The fine was issued by the city’s ethics board in 2023 and was dismissed by de Blasio as “perplexing” and “entirely baseless.”
The decision blocks de Blasio’s latest effort to erase the fine and leaves him on the hook for a $320,000 in airfare and other travel costs incurred by his security detail during the four-month campaign. He will also have to pay a fine of $5,000 for each of the security detail’s 31 out-of-state trips, amounting to $155,000.
Judge Shahabuddeen Ally roundly rejected de Blasio’s arguments in an 80-page ruling, finding that the mayor was “expressly and specifically” informed that the city would not bear security travel costs for the cross-country campaign, but elected to bring his police detail anyway.
“(His) position essentially eliminates his own agency in the choices he made,” the judge wrote, adding that there was no merit to “the remarkable contention that he is somehow not subject to the City’s conflicts-of-interest laws.”
The fine was the largest ever handed down by New York’s Conflicts of Interest Board, an independent city agency tasked with holding local officials to certain ethical standards. The board’s executive director, Carolyn Lisa Miller, said the judge’s ruling “speaks for itself.”
An attorney for de Blasio, Andrew G. Celli Jr., declined to comment. De Blasio did not return a text message.
De Blasio’s legal team argued that forcing him to cover the cost of his security detail’s travel expenses violated his 1st Amendment rights, creating an “unequal burden” between wealthy candidates and career public servants. They also argued that paying the reimbursement would have “no appreciable effect on the budget of the NYPD.”
The ruling leaves de Blasio on the hook for a $320,000 in airfare and other travel costs incurred by his security detail during the four-month campaign, which he launched in 2019 while serving his second term as mayor. He will also have to pay a fine of $5,000 for each of the security detail’s 31 out-of-state trips, amounting to $155,000.
Background
De Blasio has faced previous allegations of misusing his security detail. Months before he left office in 2021, a report by the city’s Department of Investigation found he treated the officers as a “concierge service,” using them to move his daughter into an apartment and shuttle his son to college.
Conclusion
The ruling marks a significant setback for de Blasio, who had argued that the fine was unfair and that he was not aware of the city’s policies on security travel costs. The decision is a victory for the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, which had imposed the fine in 2023.
FAQs
- What is the fine that Bill de Blasio must pay?
- What did Bill de Blasio do that led to the fine?
- What is the Conflicts of Interest Board?
- What was the purpose of the security detail?
$475,000
He used a police security detail during his failed White House bid, which was funded by the city, without permission.
An independent city agency tasked with holding local officials to certain ethical standards.
To protect de Blasio during his presidential campaign.
