Federal and state corruption investigators are studying documents, emails and financial records related Mayor Bill de Blasio’s campaign donations. Their subpoena reportedly targets specific donors, and the list includes landlord David Bistricer and his firm Clipper Equity.
Officials are looking for evidence of direct connections between donations to de Blasio and his allies and actions on donor’s’ behalf by the city.
De Blasio and his allies haven’t been accused of wrongdoing, and de Blasio himself has said many times that he and his administration have followed all campaign finance rules
Bistricer, whose family-run firm owns 60 buildings and thousands of residential units in the city, said he hasn’t received a subpoena himself, the Wall Street Journal reported
Bistricer held a fundraiser for de Blasio’s campaign on March 17. Back in 2010, de Blasio, in his role as public advocate, placed Bistricer on a “worst landlords” list. A spokesperson told the Journal he’d been removed from the list because he’d invested in the offending properties.
Clipper Equity bought the Sony Building at 550 Madison Avenue along with the Chetrit Group in 2013 for $1.1 billion. They sold it earlier this year to Olayan America, a division of the Saudi conglomerate Olayan Group, for just over $1.3 billion.
JSR Capital founder Jona Rechnitz has also been targeted by corruption investigators over what officials said were improper gifts to NYPD officials, as well as his close ties to the mayor’s campaign. [WSJ] — Ariel Stulberg