A judge ruled this week that former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio must pay a $475,000 fine for misusing public funds on a police security detail during his failed 2020 White House bid.

A state Supreme Court judge dismissed the former mayor’s legal challenge, calling it “entirely baseless.”

A judge ruled former Mayor Bill de Blasio will have to $500,000 in restitution and fines for sticking taxpayers with the bill for his NYPD detail during his failed 2020 presidential run. https://t.co/cVYo1tnRVz

— THE CITY (@THECITYNY) January 15, 2025

From the Associated Press:

The decision blocks de Blasio’s latest effort to erase the hefty fine issued against him by the city’s ethics board in 2023. In his motion for dismissal, de Blasio argued the board provided him with murky guidance around the use of public funds for security purposes, then overstepped its authority in imposing the fine.

Judge Shahabuddeen Ally roundly rejected those arguments in an 80-page ruling issued Monday, finding the mayor was “expressly and specifically” informed that the city would not bear security travel costs for the cross-country campaign, but elected to bring his police detail anyway.

“(His) position essentially eliminates his own agency in the choices he made,” the judge wrote, adding that there was no merit to “the remarkable contention that he is somehow not subject to the City’s conflicts-of-interest laws.”

The ruling leaves de Blasio on the hook for a $320,000 in airfare and other travel costs incurred by his security detail during the four-month campaign, which he launched in 2019 while serving his second term as mayor. He will also have to pay a fine of $5,000 for each of the security detail’s 31 out-of-state trips, amounting to $155,000.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio must pay a $475,000 fine levied against him for misusing public funds on a police security detail during his failed White House bid, a judge ruled this week. https://t.co/L9sGQ8mrV2

— Spectrum News NY1 (@NY1) January 15, 2025

It’s the largest fine ever handed down by New York’s Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB), the Associated Press noted.

Ex-NYC Mayor de Blasio Must Pay $475K Fine for NYPD’s Presidential Campaign Security. The bill comes due! Better late than never https://t.co/NhdCgjhDax

— Sal Albanese (@SalAlbaneseNYC) January 15, 2025

THE CITY reports:

De Blasio consulted with COIB to see if taxpayers could foot the bill for his security detail, and the board ruled in a confidential memo that while the city could pay the salaries and overtime of the officers, it couldn’t pay for their out-of-city travel costs.

He traveled to Iowa, Illinois and South Carolina with them anyway.

After the fine was announced, de Blasio filed a lawsuit against the board, arguing that he was exempt from the city’s conflicts of interest rules and that it was the police department’s decision, and not his, to travel with his protective detail.

In his 81-page ruling, Ally repeatedly disagreed with de Blasio’s defense that the board’s ruling and reasoning was “irrational.”

The judge agreed with the board’s findings that having taxpayers pay for police protection on the campaign trail violated rules that prohibit the use of city resources for non-city purposes and that de Blasio was abusing his official position for his own personal advantage and financial gain.