NY Court Orders Disclosure Of Ethics Probe against Mayor DiBlasio.

• Date: 10 February 2020
• Author: Rogak, Lawrence N.

New York Times v City of New York Office of the Mayor, 2020 NY Slip Op 50035(U) (Supreme Court, N.Y. County, 01/15/2020)

Ruling against Mayor DiBlasio in his attempt to keep secret the findings of an ethics panel that looked into his fundraising, the New York State Supreme Court ruled that the Mayor must turn over the documents demanded by the New York Times in a FOIL request.

The Times demanded disclosure of a letter sent to the Mayor by New York City's Conflict of Interest Board. The letter was the end result of an investigation originally opened by the City's Department of Investigation ("DOI") in 2016, which looked into the Mayor's fundraising for Campaign for One New York, a nonprofit group founded in 2013 to advance the Mayor's political career. The DOI found that the Mayor had potentially violated conflicts of interest laws by soliciting contributions for the non-profit from individuals with business before the City.

The DOI investigation found that the Mayor's office occasionally acted inconsistently with fundraising guidelines; for instance, the Mayor solicited contributions...