BOYTOY #2 Tommy Torres, with Naomi Rivera, was paid $1,100 a week as a staffer while also a teacher.
NAOMI RIVERA, 47 Assemblywoman since 2005, representing Morris Park. Allegedly installed one boyfriend as head of a nonprofit she funded and gave another a job on her staff. (Rex Dittman)
Bronx Democratic Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera allegedly used a taxpayer-funded nonprofit as her personal piggy bank, installed her unqualified lover as the group’s leader — and then helped him get a fat raise so he could take her on nice dates.
“I had no background in nonprofits,” said former boyfriend Vincent Pinela, who detailed the shocking arrangement to The Post.
Pinela, a personal trainer, was executive director of the Bronx Council for Economic Development from 2006, when he started dating Rivera, until 2010, shortly after they broke up.
“I shouldn’t have been hired,” he said.
The allegations come a week after The Post revealed that Rivera put the man she dated after Pinela, Tommy Torres, on her state payroll. He was paid $1,100 a week as a “community-relations director” at the same time he had a full-time job as a Brooklyn gym teacher and coach.
Rivera, 47, steered hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Bronx group, while Pinela, 40, was running the nonprofit and the two were living together.
Among his allegations:
* After he was hired at $60,000, Rivera told him he needed to ask for a raise because she believed the couple “needed to be able to go out and do things,” Pinela said she told him. His salary climbed to $75,000 just three months after he started.
* Romantic dinners and meals were paid for on the taxpayers’ dime. In one instance, she told him to pay for a dinner with her and her father, Assemblyman José Rivera, and “charge it to the Bronx Council” as a business meeting, Pinela said.
* Kameleon, a production company owned by Rodney Rivera, the assemblywoman’s brother, received $40,500 for work at the Bronx Renaissance Festival in 2007, records show. “When I found out about that, I didn’t want to pay them,” Pinela said. But the expenses went through.
* Campaign-related expenses were charged to the nonprofit, a violation of the law, Pinela alleged. A list of expenses from 2007 shows a $1,000 payment for an “Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera Grant Fundraiser” and a $100 donation for Naomi Rivera to the Committee of 100 Democrats barbecue.
Pinela met Rivera one September afternoon in 2006 while walking though the park. She handed him a flier and encouraged him to attend a community event, and Pinela, who was then working as a life-insurance salesman, tried to sell her a policy.
They made an appointment to talk business, he said, then she asked him out to dinner.
According to the ex-lover, Rivera told Pinela that she was getting divorced from husband Antonio Rodriguez and that she’d moved out.
“I found out later that it wasn’t the truth because she was still living with her husband in the same apartment,” Pinela said. Rodriguez ended up filing for divorce in 2008.
Two months after romance blossomed, Pinela said, he was hired as the executive director of the nonprofit — at Naomi’s urging.
The Bronx Council for Economic Development was founded in 1995 by former Bronx party boss Roberto Ramirez. In 2002, Ramirez handed the Bronx Democratic Party reins to José Rivera, and the Riveras became the most powerful political family in the borough.
Besides José and Naomi in the Assembly, brother Joel Rivera is the Democratic majority leader of the City Council, and brother Rodney works at the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
José Rivera was ousted in 2008 as Bronx Democratic county chairman in a coup by elected officials who accused him of nepotism.
The board of the Bronx Council nonprofit is stocked with political allies of Ramirez and the Riveras.
In 2006, political strategist Luis Miranda, who runs a consulting firm with Ramirez, sat on the board. Serafin Mariel, a politically connected business man, replaced him on the board when he left that year. Angel Cruz, an attorney, served as board secretary while his wife, Lumarie Maldanado, worked as Naomi River’s counsel part time in 2008, records show.
Since 2006, Naomi has steered hundreds of thousand of dollars in capital grants and member items to the group, according to records.
The year Pinela became executive director, the nonprofit’s tax filing shows it received $306,753 in grants from the state. In addition to capital grants, Naomi allocated member items of $73,500 in 2008-09 and $75,000 in 2009-10, according to records.
Real-estate records show Naomi Rivera and Pinela shared an address in 2008 and 2009. Pinela said she moved into his Lydig Avenue apartment with her son.
“Naomi told me I could work whatever hours,” Pinela said.
“I worked seven days a week,” he laughed.
She expected Pinela to pay for everything, he said.
“She would say my friends will look at you and say, ‘Well, he’s cute, but he’s not really there,’ ” Pinela recalls, meaning making enough money. “She was saying that I was not the same of stature as everyone else, and we would get into fights.”
She’d call the nonprofit asking for him as if he were a car service.
“There were times that she’d have me drive her up to Albany when I should have been down here doing work,” Pinela said.
At SOMOS conferences in Puerto Rico, he said, Naomi insisted on adjoining rooms — one for them and the other for her son and his daughter. The council paid for one of the rooms. They attended every year, he said.
Once Naomi wanted to show her dad that her boyfriend was a good guy, so she insisted he pick up an expensive tab at a restaurant near their hotel.
“Don’t tell my father,” he claims she whispered. “Charge it to the council.”
During the Puerto Rico trips, she also ordered him to put romantic dinners and poolside drinks on the council’s tab, he claimed. The expenses are indistinguishable and appear as reimbursements to Pinela in documents given to The Post by Pinela.
He said he tried to make the group a reputable organization and felt uncomfortable about “improper” and “questionable” requests his lawmaker lover made — so he tried to get out of the relationship.
“Well, you know, if we’re over, people are going to want to get you out [of your job]. And I can’t protect you and protect your job,” she would warn.
When he broke up with her in March 2009, he claimed, she made it impossible for him to work there. He left in 2010.
After the breakup, funds dried up, his part-time staff was fired and the assemblywoman’s staffers started working in the nonprofit’s office instead, according to copies of letters between board members provided to The Post.
The group canned him and denied him three months’ severance pay when he refused to sign a document stating he would not take action against Naomi or the council.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “I never got my three months.”
He filed a sexual-harassment complaint in 2010 against the council but lost because Rivera wasn’t his “direct employer,” according to records.
Rivera refused to address specific accusations, but in an e-mail to The Post said, “The allegations made by Mr. Pinela against me are untrue and are made intentionally and maliciously to defame my character, and to question my integrity. Friends, and constituents who know me, know that these are baseless accusations. I will not let myself be distracted from the work that needs to be done in my district.”
The Rivera political dynasty
The most politically powerful family in The Bronx, the Riveras are key Democratic players in Albany and New York City.
* José Rivera, 74
The father, an assemblyman representing Fordham since 2000. He was the Bronx Democratic Party boss until his ouster in 2008 over charges of nepotism.
* Joel Rivera, 33
Naomi’s brother, the City Council majority leader. He became the youngest person ever elected to the council when, at age 22, he replaced his father, José, who vacated in a special election in 2000.
* Rodney Rivera, 42
Naomi’s brother. He owns Kameleon, an event consulting group that was given at least $40,000 by the nonprofit Naomi funds. He works for the state as a $74,000-a-year special assistant at the Environmental Conservation Department.
* Roberto Ramirez, 62
Former Bronx party boss. He helped make José party boss after stepping down in 2002 to focus on his consulting firm. Ramirez founded the Bronx Council for Economic Development, the nonprofit the Riveras fund and control.
* Antonio Rodriguez, 44
Naomi’s ex-husband. In 2006, when they were still married, Christine Quinn gave him a $95,000-a-year job with the City Council as a favor to José, who had backed her election as speaker. In 2011, Rodriguez made $109,000 as senior graphic designer for the council.
Additional reporting by Isabel Vincent