By: David Mitchell
New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio is once again the subject of raised eyebrows – this time over a bank loan.
The two-term mayor reportedly received mortgages on the homes he owned in Park Slope “from a bank founded by the brother of men who received $173 million from the city in a controversial real estate deal,” according to a report in The Daily News.
The bank in question is Wall Street Mortgage Bankers, which operates under the name Power Express Mortgage Bankers. The paper cites city Finance Department records.
“The bank’s treasurer, secretary, former president and founder is Abraham Podolsky, public records and multiple sources revealed,” the News said. “Abraham is the brother of slumlords Jay and Stuart Podolsky, who earlier this year sold 17 buildings to the city for $173 million. Abraham did not respond to several messages.”
The deal, valued at $173 million, originally set aside to be used for affordable housing, “came under intense scrutiny for months from critics who pointed to Jay and Stuart’s criminal past, a federal probe into their real estate empire and wildly divergent appraisals on the land they ultimately sold to the city,” the News noted. “Abraham’s company’s loans to de Blasio as well as his family connections are now renewing concerns about potential conflicts of interest surrounding the deal.”
Records filed with the city’s Department of Finance show that de Blasio’s clapboard row house on 11th Street has a $625,000 mortgage from Wall Street Mortgage Bankers, The Daily News reports.
“That agreement, city finance records show, is dated June 26, 2014—six months after de Blasio began his first term as mayor—and is due on July 1 2044,” reported Curbed New York. “A separate Wall Street Mortgage loan on de Blasio’s second Park Slope property, also on 11th Street, is for $630,500 and is due in 2042, according to finance records.”
City Comptroller Scott Stringer has reportedly asked that City Hall release the deal’s appraisals. “Stringer is investigating the appraisals of the properties sold by the Podolsky brothers because independent appraisals estimated the value of the properties to be around $143 million. In April, Stringer issued a subpoena to make the de Blasio administration release the documents, questioning the inflated final price tag of $173 million,” reported 6sqft.com.
According to the web site, the Podolsky brothers were represented by Frank Carone, who served as a lawyer for the Brooklyn Democratic Party and has reportedly given no less than $21,500 to the mayor. “The city plans on converting 468 cluster apartments in buildings in the Bronx and Brooklyn to permanently stabilized apartments,” the story noted. “The apartments were part of a program created by the Giuliani administration that paid private landlords higher rents to house homeless families.”