Former Mayor Bill de Blasio has reached a historic six-figure financial settlement with the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) over his improper use of a taxpayer-funded police detail during his failed presidential campaign in 2019.
As part of the agreement, de Blasio will pay $319,000 in restitution — a record amount in COIB’s history — plus a $10,000 fine. De Blasio was required to pay $100,000 immediately, which he did this week, then the rest in quarterly installments for the next four years.
“I made a mistake and I deeply regret it,” the ex-mayor stated in the settlement he signed last Friday.
Questions about the taxpayers footing the bill for the mayor’s detail as he traipsed across America in his quixotic White House bid were first reported by THE CITY, in 2019. The city Department of Investigation issued a blistering report in 2021 detailing his abuse of the detail, which also included escorting his children and wife on personal business.
“This settlement brings to a successful conclusion the first ever enforcement action brought by the Board against a Mayor of the City of New York,” the board wrote in a press release, thanking the Department of Investigation for its “extensive” work which helped complete the process.
DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber noted that de Blasio’s “acknowledgment of wrongdoing and resolution of this matter … makes clear that all city officials, regardless of position, must follow the law or face serious consequences.”
The settlement follows three years of litigation as de Blasio fought back against paying his owed amount after COIB began their enforcement against him in April 2022. A spokesperson for the city Law Department did not immediately respond to THE CITY’s question about how much the taxpayers spent to respond to the former mayor’s ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit.
Toward the end of de Blasio’s tenure at City Hall, then-DOI Commissioner Margaret Garnett released a damning report accusing him of improperly using his NYPD detail as he ran a losing campaign in the run-up to the 2020 presidential Democratic primary, charging the city for travel, meals, and lodging for the officers during 31 campaign stops across the nation.
The COIB then found de Blasio’s misuse of the police detail violated ethics rules all city employees are required to follow, noting that his campaign had been warned ahead of time that it would have to foot the bill. In 2023, it ordered him to pay the $319,000 in restitution, and imposed a record $155,000 fine.
De Blasio then sued the board, arguing that the COIB had no authority to tell the mayor how to run the city, and that to impose such a sanction would violate his First Amendment right to free speech and his 14th Amendment right to equal treatment under the law.
Emily Reisbaum of Clarick Geuron Reisbaum, outside counsel hired by the city Law Department, described that argument as a “chilling vision of an imperial mayorality,” contending that taxpayers “should not be forced to pay de Blasio’s campaign expenses.”
In January, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Shahabudden Abid Ally dismissed all of de Blasio’s arguments, calling them “remarkable” and “meritless.”
As part of the settlement announced Wednesday, de Blasio agreed to drop his appeal and the board agreed to forgo $145,000 of its original fine after his lawyers said “his financial situation” makes it impossible for him to pay it.
If he ever defaults on his payments, however, the original full amount of nearly $475,000 — including the original fine — will become immediately due.
“Today I settled an outstanding case with the NYC COIB,” de Blasio posted on social media Wednesday. “I acknowledge that I made a mistake, and I deeply regret it. Now it’s time to move forward.”Notably, if de Blasio — who since leaving office has worked in academia — dies before the payments are done, COIB agreed not to try to obtain the remaining money from his estate or his heirs.
