Two city council members were slapped with hefty fines for accepting prohibited campaign contributions from a group at the center of the Central Park horse carriage brouhaha.
Freshman member Laurie Cumbo (D-Brooklyn) was fined $7,868, and newbie Mark Levine (D-Manhattan) was fined $8,686 by the city’s Campaign Finance Board for accepting over-the-limit funding from a “prohibited source.”
The board found that the funding source for both campaigns – New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Street (NYCLASS) – was too intertwined with the candidates’ consultant, The Advance Group (TAG).
Campaigns are prohibited from coordinating with third-party groups that make “independent” expenditures.
Yet TAG president and lobbyist Scott Levenson was political director for NYCLASS, and both groups shared the same office space.
Two other TAG staffers also did work on behalf of NYCLASS – the group that helped bankroll a vicious anti-Christine Quinn effort in last year’s mayoral primary.
NYCLASS’s efforts also boosted then-Public Advocate Bill de Blasio – who vowed to ban the iconic horse carriages from Central Park – in his successful run for mayor.
“The penalties leveled today against the Cumbo and Levine City Council campaign represent only the first step in this proceeding,” said CFB Chair Rose Gill Hearn. “The board will consider violations and penalties for the other parties to these transactions.”
As The Post has reported, Levenson is being probed by state Attorney General Eric ÂSchneiderman, US Attorney Preet Bharara and the city Department of Investigation over potential misconduct in last year’s mayoral race.
The two council members, NYCLASS and TAG reps did not immediately respond to request for comment.