A Bronx lawmaker with a long history of alleged ethical lapses is under investigation by the Bronx district attorney\u2019s office for allegedly misusing campaign funds for his personal benefit.<\/p>\n
Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark\u2019s office over the past few months has issued subpoenas seeking various records from Bronx Councilman Mark Gjonaj\u2019s campaign fund and companies and other entities he\u2019s closely affiliated with as part of wide-ranging look at the lawmaker, sources said.<\/p>\n
This includes whether Gjonaj \u201ccommingled\u201d money between his campaign fund and a nonprofit group serving Albanian-Americans that he\u2019s been closely affiliated with for years.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit, known as Albanian-American Community Association, listed Gjonaj as its \u201cprimary contact\u201d in a 2015 tax exemption request to the IRS, and has listed 970 Morris Park Avenue as its headquarters the same location as several Gjonaj family realty businesses. The office phone numbers are also shared.<\/p>\n
In 2018, Gjonaj steered $130,000 in\u00a0legislative pork\u00a0to the nonprofit but then pulled it after questions were raised about his prior affiliations with the group.<\/p>\n
One City Hall source said he\u2019s \u201cnot surprised\u201d the Bronx DA is taking a good look at Gjonaj, adding the Council\u2019s Committee on Standards & Ethics last February had to turn over its investigation of Gjonaj to the city\u2019s Conflicts of Interest Board because allegations against him were \u201cvoluminous.\u201d<\/p>\n
COIB is still reviewing whether Gjonaj broke any laws in 2018 by paying\u00a0$22,800 in taxpayer funds\u00a0for renovation work in his district done by businesses whose principals were among Gjonaj\u2019s top campaign donors.<\/p>\n
That included $9,700 in no-bid work to All Pro Design & Construction Corp., which shares the same Morris Park Avenue business address as a realty company Gjonaj listed as owning on his annual financial disclosure forms.<\/p>\n
All Pro officials donated $2,000 to Gjonaj\u2019s 2017 campaign.<\/p>\n
Gjonaj spokesman Reginald Johnson said the lawmaker believes he\u2019s done nothing wrong and will be \u201cfully cooperative\u201d in the probe, including turning over any records he\u2019s asked for.<\/p>\n
He said that \u201cwhile no subpoenas have been addressed personally to the councilman,\u201d documents have been requested from Gjonaj\u2019s 2021 re-election campaign and \u201centities\u201d that are \u201cinactive\u201d or \u201cwhich he never had or no longer has an interest in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the targeted companies and entities are owned by Gjonaj\u2019s relatives, a source said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile he does not know the subject of the inquiry, he is fully cooperating with the request and feels confident that any actions taken on his behalf are completely appropriate and proper,\u201d said Johnson.<\/p>\n
Reps for the Bronx DA\u2019s office declined to comment.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Bronx lawmaker with a long history of alleged ethical lapses is under investigation by the Bronx district attorney\u2019s office for allegedly misusing campaign funds for his personal benefit. Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark\u2019s office over the past few months has issued subpoenas seeking various records from Bronx Councilman Mark Gjonaj\u2019s campaign fund and companies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1469,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-york","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13505,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13503\/revisions\/13505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}