CITY OF NEW YORK CONFLICTS OF INTEREST BOARD

2 Lafayette Street, Suite 1010 New York, New York 10007 (212) 442-1400 Fax: (212) 442-1407 TDD: (212) 442-1443

Nicholas Scoppetta Chair/Board Member Anthony Crowell Board Member Andrew Irving Board Member Burton Lehman Board Member Erika Thomas-Yuille Board Member ____________ Mark Davies Executive Director Wayne G. Hawley Deputy Executive Director & General Counsel Carolyn Lisa Miller Director of Enforcement Julia Davis Special Counsel & Director of Annual Disclosure Alex Kipp Director of Training & Education Varuni Bhagwant Director of Administration Derick Yu Director of Information Technology

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 1, 2013

CONTACT: Carolyn Lisa Miller (212) 442-1419 miller@coib.nyc.gov

EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY LIAISON AT THE BRONX BOROUGH PRESIDENTS OFFICE SUSPENDED FOR 30 DAYS FOR USING HER CITY POSITION TO BENEFIT HERSELF & HER SON
The New York City Conflicts of Interest Board (Board) and the Office of the Bronx Borough President (BBPO) concluded a settlement with an Education and Community Liaison who agreed to serve a 30 workday suspension, valued at $5,066.13, for her violations of the Citys conflicts of interest law and the BBPO Employee Manual. As part of her official duties at BBPO, the Education and Community Liaison was responsible for addressing constituent issues related to Bronx public schools and regularly communicating with Bronx public schools regarding those issues. In a joint disposition with the Board and BBPO, the Liaison admitted to: (1) asking a New York City Department of Education (DOE) employee to provide her with non-public information concerning her son, a student at a DOE school in the Bronx, which the employee declined to do; (2) attempting to obtain an exemption for her son from the decision of DOE administrators to exclude her son from his schools Senior Activities because he had not met the eighth-grade promotional criteria; and (3) soliciting employment and personal assistance from the Chief of Staff of a New York City Council Member and the chairs of the Bronx Borough Presidents Education Consortia, officials with whom she dealt in the course of performing her official duties. This conduct violated the BBPO Employee Manual and the Citys conflicts of interest law, which prohibits City employees from using their City positions to benefit themselves or someone with whom they are associated, which includes a parent, child, sibling, spouse, domestic partner, or person or firm with whom or which the employee has a business or financial relationship.

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Scroll down or click here to view the public disposition in this case. All of the Boards dispositions are available free of charge, in full-text searchable form, on the website for the Center for New York City Law at New York Law School (www.CityAdmin.org). Carolyn Lisa Miller, Director of Enforcement, handled this case for the Board. Raymond Sanchez, Jr., Counsel and Director of Policy, handled this case for BBPO. The Conflicts of Interest Board is the Citys ethics board and is charged with interpreting and enforcing the Citys conflicts of interest, annual disclosure, and lobbyist gift laws. For more information about the Board, visit: http://nyc.gov/ethics. Anyone with questions about the law is urged to contact the Board through its website or by calling (212) 442-1400. The Board does not comment on its dispositions, except as set forth above. For additional public information about the Boards enforcement activitiesincluding summaries of all prior enforcement dispositions and fines imposedvisit the Boards website: www.nyc.gov/html/conflicts/html/units/enforcement.shtml.