By Bill Parry
Mayor Bill de Blasio and his aides will not face criminal prosecution in connection with his campaign fund-raising, prosecutors announced Thursday. While Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim made his announcement in a brief statement, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. sent a 10-page letter to the state Board of Elections concluding that de Blasio and his associates acted with “advice of counsel” that channeling donations was legal and had no provable criminal intent.
“I think this confirms what I have been saying and all of my colleagues have been saying,” de Blasio said on his weekly radio broadcast Thursday. “We held ourselves to a very high standard and we will continue to. I appreciate that both the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office did a very thorough effort. We cooperated from the very beginning. We said we wanted to help in any way we can — we could and we did; offered a lot of assistance and information.”
Kim, who replaced former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara after he was fired by the White House last weekend, said his office conducted a thorough investigation into several circumstances in which de Blasio and others acting on his behalf solicited donations from individuals who sought official favors from the city, after which de Blasio made or directed inquiries to relevant city agencies on behalf of those donors.
“In considering whether to charge individuals with serious public corruption crimes, we take into account, among other things, the high burden of proof, the clarity of existing law, any recent changes in the law, and the particular difficulty in proving criminal intent in corruption schemes where there is no evidence of personal profit,” Kim said in his statement. “After careful deliberation, given the totality of circumstances here and absent additional evidence, we do not intend to bring federal criminal charges against the mayor or those acting on his behalf relating to the fund-raising efforts in question.”
The prosecutor added that such a public statement on the status of an investigation is rare.
“We believe it appropriate in this case at this time,” Kim said, “in order not to unduly influence the upcoming campaign and Mayoral election.”
Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparr
