Metro

Liu sues city for blocking $3.8M in public funds during mayoral bid

They never caught him breaking campaign finance laws – and now he wants to city pay him for it!

Former Comptroller John Liu slapped the city and the Campaign Finance Board with an unprecedented lawsuit Wednesday, alleging they delivered a “death sentence” to his pie-in-the-sky mayoral bid last year by withholding $3.8 million in public matching funds.

The sore loser — who finished a distant fourth in the September Democratic mayoral primary after eeking out a mere 7 percent of the vote — and his campaign committee filed the Manhattan federal court suit claiming his civil rights were violated a month earlier when the Board withheld the funds.

The Board based its August ruling on an investigation that found “pervasive” violations of campaign law throughout Liu’s campaign operation, citing the May convictions of Liu’s campaign treasurer and a campaign donor in connection with a straw-donor scheme.

Liu, who was seeking to become the city’s first Asian-American mayor, was never implicated in the scheme.

Although the suit says Liu is seeking unspecified money damages, the Queens pol claimed during a press conference that he’s “not looking for a single nickel” for himself or an election “do-over.”

Instead, Liu – who political pundits believe wants to run for elected office again — claims the litigation is all about “reforming a system” at the Board that “has been broken” by “out-of-control bureaucrats and unaccountable Board members.”

When asked why he waited until now to sue, Liu said he wanted to wait until after his term as comptroller was up in January.

“This is the time to do this,” he said.

The suit also alleges that former Mayor Bloomberg’s 11th-hour appointment in December of former Department of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn to chair the Board was done illegally by “circumventing” a selection process outlined in the City Charter.

“Sadly the New York City Campaign Finance System was once hailed as a nationwide model, but it has devolved into a nitpicking, imperious bureaucracy, now chaired by a political appointee who was illegally installed by the outgoing mayor,” the suit says.

The Campaign Finance Board issued a statement saying, “Over 25 years and seven mayoral elections, the Board’s oversight has always been tough, but fair.

“It protects taxpayers, and ensures campaigns that receive funds are playing by the rules. We will not comment further on the litigation until the appropriate time.”