Former Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes was whacked with a $40,000 fine for illegally using his office as an arm of his failed 2013 re-election campaign.
The fine by the Conflicts of Interest Board is the highest in the agency’s history for a campaign activity violation — and it came after investigators found “routine and extensive use” of city resources and employees for the race, the board said.
Four staffers of the DA’s office under Hynes were also hit with fines for improperly participating in the campaign.
Hynes admitted to using his work account to send a whopping 5,000 campaign emails as he scrambled to save his job. He ultimately lost to Ken Thompson, who has since died. The longtime DA used his office computer and email to communicate with his campaign manager, paid consultants and pollsters about his campaign announcement, fund-raising and endorsements.
He also enlisted his underlings in the DA’s office to pitch in extensively with the campaign, often while on the clock in their official jobs, the board found.
Hynes asked staffers to set up endorsement interviews, campaign TV appearances, fund-raisers and get out the vote efforts — even requesting that two administrative associates print campaign documents 46 times.
He asked his chief assistant district attorney — during work hours and using official email — to help him clean up after a series of scandals, including campaign donations that may have affected a prosecution, his hiring of the daughter of a campaign contributor and his relationship with the late disgraced Brooklyn Democratic boss Vito Lopez.
Hynes also exchanged emails with a sitting judge about who to pick as his campaign manager, the judge’s efforts to help him get newspaper endorsements and positive media coverage, and campaign ads endorsements and strategy.
Hynes’ director of public information, Jerry Schmetterer, agreed to a $6,000 fine after admitting he wrote and sent around campaign press releases from his work email, and exchanged emails with campaign manager Dennis Quirk and political consultants George Arzt and Scott Levenson.
Chief Assistant DA Amy Feinstein ‘fessed up to using work hours, computer and email to prepare the campaign’s response to a Village Voice story about donations that had allegedly swayed a prosecution, a report about Hynes hiring the daughter of a donor and criticism of his relationship with Lopez. She also helped Hynes prep for debates. Feinstein will be fined $4,500.
Administrative associate Joanna Zmijewski was fined $3,000 for using work time and resources to do scheduling for the campaign, including setting up appearances at political clubs, campaign stops and fund-raisers. She also typed thank you notes to campaign donors and printed dozens of campaign documents.
Lance Ogiste, then the counsel to the DA, was dinged for working with Hynes to get an endorsement from the New York Carib News. He was fined $1,000.
Ogiste is now an assistant district attorney. The other three have left the office.
Hynes faulted himself.
“In the midst of a feverishly contested primary race, I made the mistake of using my city email for campaign-related matters,” he said in a statement. “If anyone is to blame for this, it should be me and me alone. I hope my decision to resolve the matter early causes the COIB to leave my former staff alone, they did nothing wrong and they served the public good doggedly every day they came to work.”
His lawyer, Jim Walden, touted Hynes’ long record in office and said the settlement “is hardly a foot fault in the epic match he played over 40 years of distinguished service to the public.”
The Department of Investigation previously implicated Hynes in the improper use of $200,000 taken from drug dealers and defendants to pay a political consultant in the failed race.
Prosecutors ultimately dropped a criminal investigation into the matter.
Hynes presided over 22 wrongful convictions that have since been overturned, several of them centered around the questionable tactics of disgraced ex-NYPD detective Louis Scarcella.
He acknowledged that witnesses in his cases were held overnight in locked hotel rooms against their will to compel them to testify.