Three weeks after returning to official duties as a Council Member after an unprecedented suspension for an elected official, Bronx Councilman Andy King painted himself a victim when the Council voted to suspend him after agreeing he abused his office. King also clarified why he had equated the investigation to a “lynching.”

“They didn’t go after me or my work, they went after my character, and the character that I had built—and that my dad and my mom had put in me over the years. So that’s why I used the term ‘lynching’ because that’s all that it’s about. It was not anything about the truth; it was about how do we destroy an individual,” King told BronxNet Television host Gary Axelbank in the latest BronxTalk With Gary Axelbank program. King, wearing a checkered brown and black suit, sat alongside his attorney, Pamela D. Hayes.

In one exchange that veered into theory, King also conveyed supporters’ claims that the 12th Council District legislator may be the victim of a political hit job.

“Some people have come up to me and said, ‘You know what this is all about?’ … He said, ‘Hey, it’s about because people want you to run for borough president, so in order to slow you down, because they know that you work hard, you care, and you love, you know, how do you stop a guy who’s like that, so you assassinate his character,’” said King.

Axelbank asked whether King would consider a run. King said if people “want me, I shall.”

Meantime, Hayes announced she’ll continue pursuing a lawsuit against the city on claims of lack of due process, claiming that appointments with the Council’s Standards & Ethics Committee, which had carried out its investigations of King through outside counsel, had been canceled, cross-examinations were barred, and a request for an adjournment so King can attend a back-to-school event he organized on Sept. 13 denied.

“The Black and Latino and Asian Caucus even went to the Speaker’s office and said, ‘can you give Council Member King a 30-day extension? That’s all he’s asking for.’ And they denied it,” said King. “They presented a one-sided case.”

“I would even make a recommendation to the Council moving forward that any time there’s an investigation that there can’t be a decision without talking to a Council Member, and the only way you can come to making a decision if you get a legal signed document from the Council Member saying that they choose not to participate,” King added. “You can’t make a decision stating someone decided not to participate on your own volition and then go out and make your own decisions.

The case was tossed out by a state judge.

It was King’s first television interview discussing the events that led to his 30-day suspension from the New York City Council after the Ethics Committee substantiated claims he had abused his office by firing staffers who had cooperated with an initial 2017 investigation of King, made anti-gay comments, while allowing his wife, an executive at 1199 SEIU whom he referred to as “the First Lady,” to help manage the office’s daily activities. King denied this, comparing his wife’s actions with the oft practice of elected officials speaking regularly with union leaders on government matters. “My wife doesn’t supervise my staff and doesn’t control my staff,” said King.

King was also accused of using public funds to organize a retreat to the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2017, where his stepdaughter’s wedding, happening the exact same time and place as the retreat, was listed on the retreat’s official itinerary. No elected officials, King said, had attended the wedding.

“It’s disingenuous to say that I used Council funding for a trip and pay for my daughter’s wedding. Real talk—if I was to use any discretionary money to pay for a wedding, I’d be in jail right now,” said King.

The claims were laid out in a 48-page report in October that was immediately followed by his suspension, where the Council voted 44 to 1 (King was the lone dissenter in the vote). King’s fellow members, including Councilwoman Vanessa Gibson, who sits on the Ethics Committee, voted in favor of suspension with the exception of Council Members Fernando Cabrera and Ruben Diaz Sr., who were absent the day of the vote.

Such a suspension had never happened in modern Council history. King was elected in 2012 in a special election, later winning the seat in the 2013 and 2017 general elections. King told Axelbank that his office “was full of love,” countering the report’s claim that the office was “disorderly,” with at least one fight.

“We treated each other like family, and we did whatever we had to do—whether we had to clothe each other, feed each other, transport each other around—that’s how we operated, as a family,” said King, despite claims he had intimidated staffers during a meeting in his home that called out former staffers cooperating with a 2017 investigation.

“If you talk to two people, or three people, and you believe them, and you don’t talk to 20 other people who tell you something different I don’t know which direction you’re going in the conversation because there’ll be many people who’ll tell you no one was bullied, no one was beat up, no one was put in a situation that I never dealt with,” said King, adding that staffers would come forward.

Along with a 30-day suspension, King was also fined $15,000, which Council Speaker Corey Johnson said went unpaid the day in was due on Dec. 10. The Council is now mulling a lawsuit against King.

Meantime, King had his committee assignments pulled while a monitor was appointed to oversee the day-to-day activities in his office.

admin

Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.