Dan Halloran at his City Council office earlier this week. (Ellis Kaplan)
Halloran’s city council office (Ellis Kaplan)
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City Councilman Dan Halloran, facing federal corruption charges for allegedly trying to rig the mayoral race, has rebooted his law firm while awaiting trial — and has even met with a client in his taxpayer-funded district office, The Post has learned.
Halloran, who bragged on FBI wiretaps about how he could “grease the wheels” to get Democratic state Sen. Malcolm Smith on the GOP ticket, launched the Web site Halloranlaw.org in June, two months after his arrest.
A client said yesterday he’d met repeatedly with Halloran in his district office, which would be a direct violation of city law.
“I met with him [there] numerous times,” said Thomas Nazario, of Queens, who hired Halloran in a civil case.
Later, Nazario did an about-face after speaking with Halloran and said he did not meet with the councilman in his office, but in an adjacent office one door down that houses an Allstate branch.
Halloran, too, seemed to be confused about just where his own office is.
On Tuesday, his Web site listed the address as 166-06 24th Road in Whitestone — the Allstate office.
Halloran swore to The Post that he doesn’t run the private practice out of the district office.
But “at least two times in January,” Halloran’s legal clients walked into the Allstate office while looking for him, a worker said.
“We have no affiliation with them,” the Allstate employee said. “They are separate from us.”
Halloran’s rep claimed the councilman actually runs his firm from his Flushing home.
By Tuesday night, Halloran updated his Web site to add a Mineola, LI, address that belongs to his former Long Island-based employer, Palmieri, Castiglione & Nightingale.
“Yesterday I called the Web guy . . . ‘Make sure you get it [the address] up,’ ” Halloran said.
At the Mineola address, Halloran’s name isn’t listed with the firm’s other lawyers, and the receptionist there told The Post he’s been long gone.
“[Halloran] doesn’t work here anymore,” the receptionist said. “He’s been gone for over a year.”
Halloran said he’s “of counsel” to that and other firms.
He faces 45 years in prison on the corruption charges. “That’s politics . . . You can’t get anything without the f–king money,” Halloran said on a wiretap, a criminal complaint charged.
Halloran’s lawyer, who moved Tuesday to toss out parts of the indictment, said the pol never met clients in his district office.
The lawmaker — who practices a pagan religion that includes public floggings — is also facing a council ethics probe for alleged affairs with staffers.
Additional reporting by GEORGETT ROBERTS, CHRISTINA CARREGA and KENNETH GARGER