Metro

Liu’s so ‘re-fined’

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It’s deja Liu.

In an unprecedented move, the Sanitation Department has reissued more than $500,000 worth of summonses for illegal posters that city Comptroller John Liu’s 2009 campaign got dismissed on technicalities a few months ago.

The do-over came after Liu’s election lawyer, Marty Connor, convinced the Environmental Control Board that 7,629 violations received by the campaign weren’t served properly and should be tossed. Sources said 7,043 of those violations have since been refiled.

At $75 a pop, Liu’s campaign now faces $528,225 in fines just as he’s gearing up to mount a run for mayor in 2013.

A new hearing before the ECB is scheduled July 8.

One person in the Liu camp questioned why the Sanitation Department was suddenly so gung-ho on the posters.

“Who ever heard of doing this two years later?” asked the Liu ally. “This will raise all kinds of legal issues.”

Connor declined immediate comment, saying he first wanted to review the latest heap of paperwork.

After Liu’s most recent ECB victory in March, Mayor Bloomberg called it an “outrage” that politicians could beat the system on technicalities.

“If elected officials don’t follow the law, what hope is there for everybody else?” the mayor asked.

When his 2005 campaign was in similar straits, Bloomberg paid the full postering fine — about $300,000.

By 2009, the mayor’s campaign was being a lot more careful. It got hit with just 70 summonses costing $5,250.

One Sanitation source said the agency decided to go after Liu again because “they never challenged the summonses — they challenged the process.”

The source said officials were especially distressed that Liu’s campaign “established the process” by sending one of its field workers to collect boxes full of summonses.

As it turned out, that official couldn’t legally accept them.

Connor argued that only the campaign treasurer, Mei Hua Ru, could accept such personal service. Last November, an administrative-law judge agreed and voided 5,330 violations.

That left 1,939 more summonses that were served by certified mail and — on the surface — entirely legal. But Connor found another loophole.

In November, the entire ECB overruled a second administrative judge and accepted Connor’s argument that the Sanitation Department couldn’t identify the specific violations that were put in the mail.

david.seifman@nypost.com