Metro

Comptroller Liu says he’s still running for mayor despite fund-raiser bust

Scandal-scarred John Liu defiantly brushed off criminal charges against one of his top fund-raisers — telling a crowd of supporters that he’s running for mayor in 2013.

With federal investigators swarming his campaign operation, the city comptroller downplayed Wednesday’s arrest of Xing Wu “Oliver” Pan as merely an “unexpected challenge.”

“I want to run for the highest office in New York City,” Liu told 80 supporters at the Amber steakhouse in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, hours after Pan was arraigned on two federal wire-fraud charges for allegedly funneling thousands of dollars to Liu’s campaign war chest.

Liu’s declaration, ironically made at a fund-raiser, was reported in the Chinese-language World Journal.

“Of course, there will be many challenges, some expected, some unexpected, on the election road,” the comptroller said.

“I am very sad one of my supporters was arrested, and if the allegations are true, his behavior was wrong.”

But Liu insisted that his fund-raising operation is legitimate and that he personally did nothing illegal.

His announcement came before the abrupt resignation of Robert Abrams, the former state attorney general Liu had tapped to conduct an independent review of his fund-raising.

Pan, Liu’s moneyman, allegedly steered $16,000 to Liu’s campaign through “straw donors” to hide massive contributions made on behalf of an out-of-state businessman who actually was an undercover FBI agent.

“I have no comment,” Pan, a real-estate developer and prominent member of New York’s burgeoning Fujianese community, said outside his East Broadway office yesterday. “Anything I can say can be used against me.”

Both Liu’s 2009 and 2013 campaigns are under scrutiny for “influence peddling,” including the possibility that money originated overseas, sources said.

And a city official familiar with the investigation said the feds won’t stop with Pan.

“Clearly, the FBI isn’t sending in an undercover, doing wiretaps and video surveillance just to catch some guy from Jersey with $16,000,” the source said.

Liu has retained criminal-defense attorney Paul Shechtman in connection with the federal probe. Shechtman said Liu is cooperating with the probe.

Abrams said Shechtman told him to back off his independent review because of the criminal probe.

“Your request that I suspend my work on this matter is untenable, as it compromises my independence and my ability to do a thorough job,” Abrams wrote Liu in his resignation letter.

Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton