Former Mayor Bill de Blasio was ordered to pay almost a half-million dollars by New York City’s Conflicts of Interest Board for using city money for his security detail during his short-lived run for president in 2019.
De Blasio, who served two terms through 2021, campaigned briefly as part of a presidential bid that saw him reach 1% in some polls before ultimately dropping out. During his travels, he used city funds to pay expenses for members of the New York Police Department who served as the security detail for his family.
They racked up $319,794.20 in travel costs, including airfare, car rentals, hotel stays and meals, said the COIB, which ordered him to repay the costs. The board also fined the former mayor $155,000 for the misuse of resources, the largest fine in its history, according to a statement Thursday, which said de Blasio “disregarded the board’s advice.”
De Blasio, 62, used city funds to pay the security details’ expenses despite receiving an explicit order from COIB on May 15, 2019, that such expenses weren’t allowed. The board told de Blasio that while the city could pay the costs of NYPD officers’ salaries and overtime while they were serving on the mayor’s detail, using city money to pay for the extra travel expenses for his presidential campaign constituted using “city resources for a non-city purpose.”
The board also said “using an official position for financial gain or ‘personal or private advantage’” was in violation of the city’s charter.
The day after receiving the opinion, May 16, 2019, de Blasio formally embarked on his presidential campaign.
An attorney for de Blasio said in a statement that the former mayor will file a lawsuit in response to the board’s decision, to stop it from taking effect.
“COIB’s action — which seeks to saddle elected officials with security costs that the city has properly borne for decades — is dangerous, beyond the scope of their powers, and illegal,” Andrew Celli, de Blasio’s attorney, said in the statement.
(Updates with details from order and response from de Blasio in seventh paragraph)