Ex-NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio fined $475K for using NYPD security detail during failed 2020 presidential campaign

City government’s ethics watchdog ordered former Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday to cough up nearly $475,000 for misusing his personal police detail during his failed 2020 presidential campaign — the largest fine ever levied by the agency.

The punishment from the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board — which de Blasio is challenging in court — caps off a yearslong investigation into the ex-mayor’s decision to have his NYPD detail tag along with him on 31 out-of-state campaign trips in 2019 as part of his long-shot bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

The $474,794 penalty is “the largest fine in the history of the board,” said its chairman, Milton Williams.

In a three-page decision, Williams said that New York City ethics laws bar public servants from “using city resources for any noncity purpose.”

“[De Blasio’s] conduct plainly violates this prohibition,” Williams wrote of his NYPD-protected campaign travels.

The city has a “purpose” in funding an NYPD security detail for the mayor, Williams’ decision said. But he went on to write “there is no city purpose in paying for the extra expenses incurred by that NYPD security detail to travel at a distance from the city to accompany the mayor or his family on trips for his campaign for president of the United States.”

Williams said the board warned de Blasio before he embarked on his cross-country campaign sojourns that bringing his NYPD detail along would likely skirt the law.

“[De Blasio] disregarded the board’s advice,” Williams wrote.

The Conflicts of Interest Board determined that de Blasio campaign-related travel, room and board for the officers on his detail cost city taxpayers $319,794. In assessing the fine, Williams said de Blasio should pay that plus $155,000 for 31 ethics law violations he committed — one on each trip — bringing the penalty to the $474,794 grand total.

De Blasio must pay up within 30 days, said Williams.

Andrew Celli, a de Blasio lawyer, blasted the ruling as “reckless” and “perilous.” Celli also announced the former mayor filed a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court seeking to overturn the ruling shortly after it was finalized.

“COIB’s action — which seeks to saddle elected officials with security costs that the city has properly borne for decades — is dangerous, beyond the scope of their powers, and illegal,” Celli said.

“Every mayor faces threats, and all mayors are entitled to protection — regardless of party or politics,” he added. “That’s why the NYPD is charged with determining what level of protection is necessary for such officials, when, and how.”

John Miller, a former NYPD deputy commissioner of intelligence who was involved in the decision-making around the deployment of de Blasio’s detail, told the Daily News the ex-mayor’s family faced roughly 160 threats between 2018 and 2020. That included threats to hang de Blasio and sexually assault his wife, as well as threats to the safety of both of his adult children, Miller said.

Against that backdrop, Miller argued using the NYPD to protect de Blasio on the 2020 campaign trail was totally justified.

“He doesn’t stop being mayor when he’s on vacation or campaigning,” Miller said. “The security detail is basically part of the package.”

The Conflicts of Interest Board’s ruling was based on a probe launched by the city Department of Investigation in 2019 after The News reported that de Blasio had used his detail for a number of eyebrow-raising purposes. In addition to the campaign trips, he deployed his detail to shuttle his son back and forth from Yale University, and to help his daughter move out of a Brooklyn apartment.

The Department of Investigation released a report in 2021 determining de Blasio owed the city $320,000 for the presidential campaign NYPD protection. The report held that de Blasio’s other family-related uses of the detail amounted to ethical transgressions as well.

The Conflicts of Interest Board’s ruling, though, focuses solely on how the detail was deployed during the 31 campaign trips he took to states including Iowa and South Carolina between May and September 2019, sometimes accompanied by his wife, then-First Lady Chirlane McCray.

Conflicts of Interest Board Executive Director Carolyn Miller declined to comment on why Thursday’s ruling doesn’t touch on the other alleged misuses by de Blasio.

In a statement, Department of Investigation Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber said the ruling “reaffirms DOI’s investigative findings, and shows that public officials — including the most senior — will be held accountable when they violate the rules.”

A former senior de Blasio staffer at City Hall said the ex-mayor knew full well he had no shot at becoming president in 2020. The staffer said it speaks volumes about de Blasio that he went ahead with launching his campaign anyway and then had his detail travel with him despite being warned about the potential legal issues at play.

“It’s a pattern of behavior that lasted throughout his administration — ‘I’m going to do whatever I want to do, even if it isn’t prudent,’” the ex-de Blasio aide said.

De Blasio has been dogged by debt since he left City Hall in late 2021. The news organization The City reported that de Blasio left office nearly $1 million in debt, most of it owed to Kramer Levin & Naftali, a law firm that represented him between 2015 and 2017 while he was under investigation for his campaign fund-raising tactics.

It’s unclear how much of that debt de Blasio has paid off. The ex-mayor did not return calls for comment Thursday.

Walking out of City Hall on Thursday afternoon, Mayor Adams chuckled when asked by The News for a reaction to the fine on de Blasio.

“Listen, I haven’t read the report,” Adams said of the board’s ruling. “We’ll read it, though.”

Some officials in Adams’ administration have faced scrutiny over their own use of NYPD details.

Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Phil Banks and Chief Technology Officer Matt Fraser both have taxpayer-funded security details supplied by the NYPD, as first reported by The News last year. The revelations about their details raised concern at the time from law enforcement experts, who questioned what legitimate purpose there could be for the civilian officials to have details.

Asked whether the Conflicts of Interest Board’s de Blasio findings would prompt Adams’ administration to reconsider its detail deployments, Adams spokesman Fabien Levy declined to comment.