The general counsel for the New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services has recommended against a lease brokered by Jesse Hamilton, a real estate executive in Mayor Adams’ administration whose cellphone was seized last month as part of a corruption investigation led by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. . .
The revelations came during Tuesday’s City Council oversight hearing into the agency’s commercial leasing operations, as Mr. Hamilton, DCAS deputy director and longtime Adams ally, remains under intense scrutiny as part of a corruption investigation. Ta. Also, a multimillion-dollar lease deal with Adams billionaire donor Alex Lobto, after Politico reported that Mr. Hamilton bypassed the formal bidding process and provided the funding.
According to Politico, another real estate firm won a formal bid to move the city’s Office on Aging to a new location earlier this year, but Hamilton intervened and instead moved the lease to Wall, a Financial District building owned by Robt. It is said that it was moved to 14 Street. .
“My understanding is that the general counsel felt that going to 14 Wall Street might be problematic,” DCAS Director Luis Molina said at a council hearing. , added that the department’s lawyers have not determined that the transaction is illegal.
Mr. Molina, who was appointed commissioner in June, said his agency chose to award the deal to Mr. Adams’ donors, despite his attorney’s warnings, because it would cost the city millions of dollars. He said it was because of the savings.
Manhattan City Councilmember Gail Brewer questioned DCAS’ decision to move the Department of Aging’s headquarters to 14 Wall Street instead of the agency’s previously approved office building, saying the savings mentioned by Molina would be lost. He said it was unclear where it came from.
“It’s hard to know what the facts are, but let’s just say it,” Brewer said.
Hamilton was called to testify but did not appear at the council hearing.
On September 27, after Hamilton returned from a trip to Japan, Manhattan police officers confiscated her cell phone at John F. Kennedy Airport. City Hall officials said the trip was a vacation with the mayor’s chief adviser, Ingrid Lewis Martin, and City Hall executive Diana Boutros. A real estate company deeply involved in commercial rentals in the city. Investigators also received phone calls from Lewis-Martin and Boutros at the airport.
The DA’s investigation that led to the phone seizure is reportedly looking into possible bribery, money laundering and other crimes related to DCAS’ commercial real estate leasing business. This is an area of business that Mr. Hamilton oversees in his capacity, and one in which Mr. Boutros is extensively involved as a member of the city. The government’s leading commercial real estate brokerage.
No one has been accused of wrongdoing in the investigation.
Jesse Hamilton photographed in Park Slope, Brooklyn on August 17, 2017. (Todd Maisel/New York Daily News)
Democratic Brooklyn Councilman Lincoln Ressler, who chairs the City Council’s Government Operations Committee, which hosted the hearing, previously questioned Molina about why Hamilton’s job duties were not restricted at all given the DA’s investigation. vehemently criticized.
Mr. Molina responded that he chose not to do so because his general counsel and human resources team determined that Mr. Hamilton did not violate internal DCAS protocols.
“That’s a leap,” Ressler shot back, noting that the investigation is ongoing.
“The fact that there has been no comprehensive review of Deputy Commissioner Hamilton’s decision and no guardrails have been imposed. [and] The change in obligations is irrelevant,” Ressler said later.
Mr. Molina also answered many questions about Mr. Hamilton’s trip to Japan.
The commissioner said he had no prior knowledge that Mr Boutros’ firm, Cushman & Wakefield, had extensive business interests prior to DCAS, and disclosed that Mr Hamilton was in Japan. . He also testified that he did not find anything inappropriate about the trip because it was a personal vacation and no city funds were spent.
Ressler protested that it was “obviously unseemly and highly inappropriate” for Hamilton to travel with Boutross, given their professional entanglements.
Details were previously unknown, but after the phone seizure, Molina reportedly met with Boutros and Hamilton in his office on Oct. 8 for a meeting regarding DCAS’s “potential acquisition” of a Bronx distribution center. I testified. Molina said nothing has been finalized regarding the deal.
During his weekly news conference at City Hall late Tuesday, Adams said DCAS during his term has saved city taxpayers “millions of dollars.”
“I’ve worked in city government where taxpayers’ money was wasted, but I said no to that when I ran for office, and I fulfilled that responsibility as mayor,” Adams said.
First Published: October 29, 2024 6:43pm EDT
