NYC Mayor De Blasio
[From article]
The city Law Department drafted the civil-racketeering suit the same week that a Staten Island grand jury did not indict NYPD cop Daniel Pantaleo in Eric Garner’s chokehold death, and it was quietly filed in Brooklyn federal court on Dec. 9.
The Law Department drafted a press release boasting that the suit “is the first of its kind brought by the city against an out-of-state entity for supplying cigarette traffickers,” sources said.
But City Hall suppressed the news, ordering the Law Department not to put out the release, according to the sources.
The move kept de Blasio from looking like a hypocrite for cracking down on illegal tobacco sales at the same time he was minimizing Garner’s criminal activity, which led to his deadly July 17 arrest.
[. . .]
One city official said, “City Hall knew they had screwed up, so they squashed the press release.
“You can’t have the mayor blabbing away that selling loosies is a ‘minor offense,’ but then have the Law Department, which represents and protects the city and the mayor’s interests, file this suit,” the official said. “It reeks of duplicity.”
The official, citing de Blasio’s “Tale of Two Cities” campaign rhetoric, added “the mayor has a problem with two cities, and he created it.”
[. . .]
According to a March report by Bloomberg News, an estimated 57 percent of the cigarettes smoked in New York are smuggled across state lines to avoid hefty state and city taxes that add $58.50 to the cost of a carton.
http://nypost.com/2014/12/16/de-blasio-quietly-filed-untaxed-cig-suit-the-week-of-garner-decision/
De Blasio quietly filed untaxed cig suit the week of Garner decision
By Bruce Golding
New York Post
December 16, 2014 | 1:43am
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