Metro

I give up! Thompson pays big poster fine

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Former Comptroller Bill Thompson has decided to clear the decks for his 2013 mayoral run by paying a record-breaking fine of nearly $600,000 for plastering the city with illegal campaign posters during his previous race for City Hall, The Post has learned.

That leaves only Comptroller John Liu among the mayoral contenders still fighting six-figure penalties incurred in 2009 for poster violations.

Thompson had been challenging the 7,925 summonses issued to his old campaign at hearings before the Environmental Control Board that have stretched on for three years.

He lost a final appeal before an administrative panel in September but still had a chance to overturn the ECB’s verdict by going to court.

A campaign spokesman said Thompson has instead decided to end the battle and pay up.

“The 2009 campaign committee has decided not to proceed with any further appeals on the outstanding poster violations,” said the spokesman.

“The campaign is in settlement discussions with the NYC Department of Finance to pay off this debt.”

Thompson owes $594,375. His payment would be the largest ever made for campaign-poster infractions.

Sources said Thompson intends to use most of the $444,000 in matching funds he received in August from the Campaign Finance Board to cover three-quarters of the fines from 2009. He’ll have to raise about $125,000 more to close the books entirely.

CFB spokesman Eric Friedman said such a transfer is within the rules.

Friedman said Thompson has listed $687,000 in outstanding liabilities from 2009, primarily consisting of the poster fines.

He said the CFB released the taxpayer matching funds “based largely on the fact that he had these debts.”

Unlike Thompson, Liu is going to the mat on the $527,400 in fines still outstanding for his 7,032 violations.

He has filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court employing many of the same arguments that were previously rejected by the ECB, including that the summonses weren’t served properly.

“The poster fines are no fun,” Liu told The Post recently. “But I expect to go through the entire process, and if you ask me, some of it is unfair. I think a lot of it is.”

Since The Post began focusing on uncollected poster fines, the cash register at the ECB has been ringing.

Mayor Bloomberg shelled out about $300,000 soon after The Post reported that his 2005 re-election campaign had been bombarded by thousands of summonses.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio threw in the legal towel last September and agreed to cough up about the same sum over a period of time to settle his account.