By: Daniella Doria
The New York Post has an exclusive report that a disgraced former New York politician is now in the insurance business. Matthew Sedacca writes that former lawmaker and city Buildings Commissioner Eric Ulrich, who resigned in November in the wake of a gambling probe by the Manhattan district attorney, is now pushing different kinds of policies — insurance ones.
“I couldn’t be happier,” Ulrich gushed in a Dec. 21 email to friends, shared exclusively with The New Post, about joining Ocean Blue Insurance Agency in the Rockaways as a licensed broker. “Whether it’s property, commercial, auto or liability protection I’ve got you covered,” he added.
The former career politician, who received his insurance license last month, told The Post that the new line of work was a good step to “transition to the private sector.”
“I have bills to pay, I have a 10-year-old daughter, and I have to move on with life,” Ulrich said. “There’s life after public service. There’s life after politics.”
Law enforcement sources told The New York Post in early November, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg seized Ulrich’s phone and grilled him for two hours as part of a criminal gambling investigation.
The New York Post reports that Ulrich has not been charged with a crime but resigned two days after news of the probe broke.
Ulrich had potentially accrued debts in backroom Ozone Park card games with mob associates, sources said, with the investigation focusing on his conduct prior to serving as the Buildings commissioner.
A spokesperson for the Manhattan DA’s office declined The New York Post’s request for comment.
Eric Ulrich, 37, a former city councilman from Queens, was approached near his Rockaway Park home by the investigators, who seized the phone pursuant to a search warrant, in May of 2022.
In 2018, when he was in the City Council, court records show that Mr. Ulrich wrote a letter on official stationery in support of a constituent, a reputed Bonanno crime associate who was awaiting sentencing on federal charges for collection of an unlawful gambling debt.
Ulrich, , gave a government job to the co-owner of the Queens pizzeria linked to the probe, city records show. As a City Council member, Ulrich hired Joseph Livreri as an aide in 2019, at a salary of $26,000 a year.
In February 2009, during a special election, Ulrich was elected to a seat on the New York City Council, defeating three more senior candidates in the 32nd district in southwest Queens. Ulrich was re-elected in November 2009, in 2013, and in 2017.
Ulrich ran in the 2019 New York City Public Advocate special election. As the election was nonpartisan, Ulrich ran on the line titled Common Sense. Some of his endorsements included the Bronx GOP, Brooklyn GOP, Manhattan GOP, Queens GOP, and Staten Island GOP, as well as the New York Daily News, which, on February 20, 2019, wrote “Ulrich stands apart on a key issue of the day: He welcomed Amazon coming to Long Island City as the rest of the field was tripping over itself to denounce the deal.
In addition to supporting Amazon coming to New York City, Ulrich is the only candidate to have opposed Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to close Riker’s Island and build community jails. In a debate that aired on NY1 in early February, Ulrich vowed to be Mayor de Blasio’s “worst nightmare” if elected as Public Advocate.
