This terrorist firebug is fired!
City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez today fired his cop-hating spokesman David Segal, hours after The Post revealed that Segal had served time in a federal prison for torching an Army recruitment center in The Bronx, council sources said.
Rodriguez’s dismissal of Segal came a day after the Democratic Manhattan councilman repeatedly ducked Post reporters trying to ask him about what he knew about Segal’s terrorist past, and when he knew it.
Segal, 26, is a native of leafy Litchfield, Conn., who was hired as Rodriguez’s spokesman last March even after disclosing the arrest to Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s office, which conducts the background checks, sources said.
In January 2005, Segal threw a burning rag into the Parkchester recruitment center — and was carrying a note that described a “wave of violence” targeting military complexes in the Northeast.
Before he started a six-month sentence at Fort Dix, he described, in an online rant, his arresting officers as “pigs” who asked a bunch of “dumb questions.”
Segal served six months in federal prison and four months’ house arrest. He was on probation for another three years and ordered to pay more than $4,100 in fines and restitution.
Segal — who also has three prior busts for civil disobedience, including one last month — reiterated his anti-war stance when asked yesterday about the arrest.
“I had and continue to have a firm belief that the war in Iraq is unjust. I have a strong set of values based on social justice,” he told The Post yesterday, before he was fired. “I have to pay my debt to society, and I believe I have found a more productive way to advocate for the needs of the working class.
“I apologize to anyone I might have disappointed and to those who might not agree with my past.”
Council lawyer Elizabeth Fine defended Segal’s hiring in a statement: “It would be a violation of state law for the council or any employer to consider a criminal conviction in making an employment decision unless the conviction directly relates to the position the person has applied for.”
Councilman Rodriguez — who notched his own arrest in November for interfering with the NYPD’s clearing of Zuccotti Park — refused to comment yesterday.
His chief of staff said she had no idea about Segal’s past.
Fellow council members were less laissez faire about Segal’s hiring.
“If I see anything ablaze in his hands in or around City Hall, he will have a hell of a lot more to worry about than jail,” said Council Minority Leader James Oddo (R-SI).