The front-runner for City Council speaker is mixed up in alleged election fraud.
The son of East Harlem district leader John Ruiz — who ran with Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito for district leaders of the 68th Assembly District — says his dad forged signatures on both of their election petitions.
In August, The Post reported dead people and double signatures were showing up on Ruiz’s petitions.
Now, Johnathan Ruiz, 26, claims his father faked names on his designating petitions after discovering Mark-Viverito’s camp had given volunteers bad addresses to visit. In a panic with only hours until the petition deadline, Ruiz Sr. decided to invent signatures, his son claims.
Johnathan Ruiz, who helped with the campaign and claims to have witnessed his dad ordering volunteers to forge the John Hancocks, said the pol realized his team was collecting names of voters who were out of district. He needed 500 signatures to get on the ballot, but the wrong addresses meant he risked dozens if not hundreds being disqualified.
“Melissa’s campaign manager [Brendan Kelly] gave the wrong addresses out,” Ruiz said. “None of the signatures would’ve counted, and they both wouldn’t have made the ballot.”
A spokesperson for Mark-Viverito called Johnathan Ruiz’s claims “totally false.”
“This person has never been involved with Melissa’s campaign,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
The district leader denies the forgery allegations and says his son is a drug addict who is out to “scar” him.
The Board of Elections invalidated 1,182 of Ruiz’s 1,861 names for having duplication and being out of district. The agency disqualified 1,055 of Mark-Viverito’s 1,861 signatures.