State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has opened up an investigation into a story that has been getting increasing headlines — a real estate deal on the Lower East Side, involving a building known as Rivington House, which is now on its way from being a nursing home to a luxury apartment building, after city officials approved a controversial transaction.
The attorney general spoke Wednesday with NY1 Political Anchor Errol Louis about that investigation, as well as about a certain Republican presidential candidate with whom he has had a bitter legal battle.
Schneiderman made his first public statements about the investigation into the Rivington House scandal, in which a building zoned to serve as a nursing home won a coveted rules change from city officials that allowed it to be sold for more than $100 million to a luxury developer.
Schneiderman says the transaction demands legal scrutiny.
"There are issues related to the transfer of a building that's supposed to be used for a charitable purpose to a non-charitable purpose," the attorney general said. "Our charities bureau regulates nonprofits. There are rules that apply to them. So we're looking into it to see that all the proper laws and rules are followed."
Schneiderman also weighed in on Donald Trump and Trump University, which the attorney general sued for alleged fraud in 2013.
The attorney general dismissed claims from Trump that the lawsuit was politically motivated.
"We're used to people who are defendants in fraud cases making wild accusations against prosecutors. He also asserted on national TV that I was in a conspiracy with President Barack Obama to get him by suing him over Trump University, in 2013, long before anyone thought he would run for president. So he's made a lot of wild allegations," Schneiderman said. "He did file ethics complaints against me, which have been dismissed, along the lines that you're suggesting. He sued me for $100 million. He called me a lightweight before he called any of the Republican presidential candidates a lightweight. So I've been through this with Donald Trump. I've seen the whole, I saw the whole show before the rest of the country got to see it."