Welcome back to a long overdue edition of the Bronx News Roundup. Lots of Bronx news to get to, but today we’re focused on politics leading up to Thursday’s primary. 

In addition to hiring alleged love interests for her office and nonprofit organization, the NY Post reports that Bronx Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera also helped secure various jobs for her son, GianCarlo Fret, an aspiring rapper who goes by the nickname “GC” and apparently enjoys double-fisting bottles of expensive vodka. The article also reports that Rivera has used $10,000 in campaign money to retain the mega law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher as investigations into her potential misdeeds continue to intensify.

One of Rivera’s three challengers, Adam Bermudez, is generating some buzz with his parody youtube video, “Vote for Me Maybe,” which, it turns out, was shot not in his Bronx district, but in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. [HuffPost]

Here’s Daily News reporter Dan Beekman’s story on the 80th AD race, the “hottest political bout in the Bronx.”

In Crain’s New York, Alair Townsend writes about the allegations against Rivera, saying discretionary funds (also known as member items) controlled by city pols are too often used as “rackets,” and not for uplifting the low-income communities these pols serve.

In the wake of the Rivera allegations, the Daily News writes that, if true, it’s just the latest instance of a Bronx pol using a nonprofit for their own personal piggy bank. (see Gonzalez, Efrain; Espada, Pedro; Velella, Guy; Seabrook, Larry)

The Post points out that, according to the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), Naomi Rivera and her father, Jose, both assembly members, have two of the worst voting records in the state legislature.

Flan maker and Norwood resident Marcos Sierra says he started working on 80th AD challenger Mark Gjonaj’s campaign after an incident at the Allerton Avenue street festival two weekends ago left a bad impression of incumbent Naomi Rivera. The Daily News reports that Gjonaj bought out his entire inventory of 75 servings of flan and started giving it out to folks at the event, which Rivera’s office was hosting. One of Rivera’s staffers told Sierra to tell Gjonaj to stop doing what he was doing or Sierra risked getting booted from the event. Sierra, who lives in the district, packed up his stuff and left and then joined Gjonaj’s campaign, first as a volunteer, then as a paid canvasser. (Editor’s note: Sierra is a former intern at the Norwood News. In our opinion, his flan, sold under the name El Flanadero, is delicious. We have no opinion about his political leanings.)

That’s it for today. Tomorrow, we’ll have a less political Bronx News Roundup.