Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio must pony up nearly $500,000 for bringing his NYPD protective detail along on out-of-town trips during his ill-advised pipe dream of a presidential run in 2019, New York City’s ethics watchdog ruled Thursday.
But as soon as the decision was issued, de Blasio hit back with a lawsuit against the watchdog itself and the city he once governed, saying he shouldn’t have to pay.
The city covered the officers’ salaries and overtime, and covered the detail’s travel expenses while accompanying de Blasio on 31 trips during his doomed campaign, the municipal Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) said in its findings. “This NYPD security detail incurred $319,794.20 in travel costs, excluding NYPD salary and overtime.”
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Now, de Blasio is personally on the hook for those expenses, plus a $155,000 fine for violating a longstanding prohibition on city officials using city resources for any “non-city purpose,” according to COIB.
“When a public servant uses City resources for private purposes, it erodes the public’s trust and makes City government less efficient,” the ruling said. “For this reason, the Board has routinely enforced this prohibition, particularly where a public servant uses City resources for the non-City purpose of advancing a campaign for elective office or other political activity.”
De Blasio’s lawsuit fired back, arguing that the ruling violated his “First Amendment speech and Fourteenth Amendment Due Process rights,” adding that the city’s “compelling interest in protecting its Mayor from harm” should not end at New York City’s borders.
“The risk of harm to the Mayor is not confined to the Mayor’s government office hours,” the suit says. “Accordingly, where exactly the Mayor is located and what exactly he is doing—whether he is within the five boroughs or not; governing; relaxing; [traveling]; running for another office; or attending to personal matters—does not matter in the NYPD’s calculus of the level and scope of protection. What matters is that he is the Mayor, and that the NYPD has decided that he must be protected.”
De Blasio on the 2020 campaign trail at the Iowa State Fair.
REUTERS/Brian SnyderIn a statement, De Blasio’s lawyer, Andrew Celli, called COIB’s decision “reckless and arbitrary,” saying that New York City taxpayers have borne elected officials’ security costs for decades.
“Every Mayor faces threats, and all Mayors are entitled to protection—regardless of party or politics,” the statement read. “That’s why the NYPD is charged with determining what level of protection is necessary for such officials, when, and how. This case isn’t about Bill de Blasio or any other Mayor or high official in particular. It’s about the principle of protecting our leaders from harm for the good of our City.”
A source close to de Blasio told The Daily Beast the city had created confusion about the situation from the start, and that the whole thing had been handled poorly.
“They pay the salaries but not the incidentals?” the source said. “It’s nuts.”
According to de Blasio’s lawsuit, at least five New York City mayors have pursued or explored pursuing higher office since 1966, including Rudy Giuliani, who ran for Senate, and Ed Koch, who ran for governor. “All were provided with an NYPD protective detail at City expense during those campaigns or prospective campaigns,” the suit states.
The former mayor also argued that the ruling is inconsistent with his own experience in office. The police department paid for his security during a 2014 trip to Italy, for instance, which was partly a family vacation, he said. The city also paid for other personal trips, as it had done for his predecessors. (De Blasio has been under the microscope for these exact issues before. A 2021 report by the city’s Department of Investigation noted that de Blasio’s detail had been asked to, among other things, drive de Blasio’s brother to New Jersey so he could pick up a Zipcar. Another incident involved de Blasio’s adult daughter and an NYPD van being used to help her move.)
In Thursday’s suit, De Blasio contended that he required protection at all times while in office—including on the campaign trail—to undercut risks of violence or potential extortion via “threats on his family.” The mayor cited two death threats to bolster his point, including one that ominously warned he was “gonna be assassinated for not supporting the NYPD and for supporting n-----s.”
According to the lawsuit, de Blasio’s legal team approached the Conflicts of Interest Board in May 2019 “out of an abundance of caution” to confirm that the city would cover his security costs if he ran for president. His team seemingly believed they would not receive pushback, since the board had issued a 2009 advisory opinion granting mayors security protection at local unofficial events.
But the board didn’t see things that way. Instead, in a confidential letter, it advised de Blasio that the city would pay his security detail’s salaries and overtime costs during out-of-state campaign events, but that it would not cover incidentals, such as hotel bills, meals, and flights.
De Blasio decided to travel anyway. While he or his campaign paid his own costs, the city picked up the tab for his security. The lawsuit claimed that the city never approached him for reimbursement while he was in office. “In fact, to this very day, the City of New York has never sent Mr. de Blasio or De Blasio 2020, his campaign committee, an invoice, statement, or other accounting reflecting the incidental expenses,” the filing alleged.
During Eric Adams’ administration, however, the city apparently did not forget about the unpaid $319,794 bill. Should de Blasio lose this battle, it’s not clear how easily he’ll be able to come up with the funds. Unlike his billionaire predecessor Michael Bloomberg, the lawsuit emphasized, he is not “independently wealthy.”
