Bill de Blasio isn’t the guy who you’d want to take to the casino.

Seemingly free and clear of all major legal headaches after a getting a “we’re not indicting you” note from prosecutors, the mayor now has to figure out how to pay his legal bills after the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board largely ruled out the mayor’s hope of creating a legal defense fund.

The decision by the board yesterday forbids the mayor from accepting donations above $50 from anyone but family members and close personal friends. So unless Dante or Chiara de Blasio suddenly strike oil, the mayor is saddled with a problem that he largely foisted upon himself.

While the city green-lit $11.6 million in outside legal expenses for the defense of City Hall officials who were being probed by prosecutors, the mayor insisted that he would pay his own legal bills. It was a brash promise that has handed him yet another headache.

Although he would have been criticized for using taxpayer money to defend himself, the mayor would have been entirely justified in doing so. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was trying to decide whether the mayor and his team were engaged in “pay to play” tactics for major donors to de Blasio’s campaign and his non-profit group. The “playing” by City Hall were all official governmental acts – something that entitles the mayor to a defense by the city’s counsel. If the mayor had been arrested for something like drunk driving, that would obviously be a different story (and likely the end of his career.)

It is unclear how much de Blasio’s own legal fee will amount to because it requires lawyers to divvy up the bill like a complicated restaurant check. Obviously, one-on-one consultations with the mayor are easily split off but what happens when a lawyer is taking a phone call about the entire probe which presumably included several people in City Hall?

Creating a legal defense fund that wasn’t going to be subject to the city’s stringent campaign finance rules was a mistake to begin with and was already raising new “pay to play” questions about a new funding stream.  While the mayor now has to dig deep into his own pockets, it’s a better solution than his promised attempts at “dialogue” with the Conflicts of Interest Board about the decision or strong-arming the City Council into passing a new law about defense funds.

Next time, Mr. Mayor, bet with the house money.

 

Bob Hardt