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Gigi Li ends campaign for leader, but denies petition fraud charges

Gigi Li has dropped her challenge to District Leader Jenifer Rajkumar.
Gigi Li has dropped her challenge to District Leader Jenifer Rajkumar.

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON  |  Gigi Li withdrew as a candidate for Democratic district leader in the 65th Assembly District, Part C, on Wednesday amid allegations of fraudulent ballot petitions.

The Lo-Down reported the news, including a statement from Li announcing she was throwing in the towel, in which she acknowledged that she did not garner the required minimum of 500 signatures to get on the ballot.

However, her statement added, “I want to be clear that the accusations of fraud are false and played no role in my withdrawal.”

Li said while she was disappointed at not being able to run for district leader, she looks forward to continuing to serve as chairperson of Community Board 3. She was elected in June to a fourth one-year term leading the East Village / Lower East Side board.

Last week, two supporters of incumbent District Leader Jenifer Rajkumar who are both Democratic County Committee members — Georgette Fleischer and Lora Tenenbaum — filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Court charging that Li’s petitions were “permeated with fraud.”

Fleischer and Tenenbaum are members of the Downtown Independent Democrats Club, which is supporting Rajkumar.

They were represented in the lawsuit by former state Senator Martin Connor, one of the state’s preeminent election lawyers, who is known for his track record of knocking candidates off the ballot.

On Tuesday, amid Connor’s challenge of Li’s petitions, the Board of Elections had determined that she only had 477 valid signatures — short of the required amount.

The Part C district is heavily gerrymandered, stretching from Battery Park City through Chinatown all the way to the Lower East Side’s Hell Square. Li actually lives outside of Part C by a few blocks, but this would not have disqualified her from running.

One of the lawsuit’s main charges is that many of Li’s petition signatures were collected by underage individuals — in this case, allegedly students from a local prep school. It would have been O.K. if the teens physically collected the signatures as long as the signings were actually observed by a “subscribing witness,” who technically must be a registered Democrat, and thus 18 years or older, Sean Sweeney, a leading member of D.I.D. explained.

D.I.D. members assert they observed the youths collecting the signatures at two locations — 189 Allen St., a public-housing development, and Battery Park City — yet doing so without the presence of a registered Democrat.

“They questioned them,” Sweeney said, “and we have 360-degree, panoramic photographic evidence, showing there was no registered Democrat within 30 feet of them.”

A subscribing witness can even be blind, Sweeney said, “because they can hear it — but they have to be there.”

One subscribing witness for the signatures collected by the teens, the suit charges, was Yume Kitasei, the chief of staff of City Councilmember Margaret Chin. The accusation, thus, was that Kitasei did not actually witness the signatures, yet signed off on them at the bottom of the pages some later point, which would constitute fraud. It’s alleged that she did this for as many as 15 pages worth of names, or about 150 names, or one-tenth of Li’s total petition signatures.

One of the pages of ballot petition signatures collected for Gigi Li and signed for by Yume Kitasei, Councilmember Margaret Chin's chief of staff. Although Kitasei allegedly signed as subscribing witness for up to 15 pages of voter signatures, the lawsuit charged that Kitasei did not actually witness the signings, which would constitute fraud.
One of the pages of ballot petition signatures collected for Gigi Li and signed for by Yume Kitasei, Councilmember Margaret Chin’s chief of staff. Although Kitasei allegedly signed as subscribing witness for up to 15 pages of voter signatures, the lawsuit charged that Kitasei did not actually witness the signings, which would constitute fraud.

Sweeney said, presuming the B.O.E. had ruled Li did have enough petition signatures to qualify for the ballot and Li had stayed in the race, the opponents then would have subpoenaed the young students to make them produce their birth certificates in court, in order to disqualify signatures they had collected.

Councilmember Chin had endorsed Li, who is widely considered to be the councilmember’s protégé. Like Rajkumar, Li is thought to have her eyes on the Assembly seat of scandal-scarred former Speaker Sheldon Silver, who — according to the political word on the street — is not expected to run for re-election.

Other subscribing witnesses who petitioned for Li included two former Chin staffers, Persephone Tan and Matt Viggiano, as well as Susan Stetzer, the district manager of C.B. 3. However, all three apparently collected the signatures themselves and no fraud is alleged in these cases.

“A lot of people say it’s a conflict of interest,” Sweeney said of Stetzer petitioning for Li.

Li, who heads the 50-member volunteer community board, is technically Stetzer’s boss, in that Stetzer is the board’s top paid staff member.

Asked his thoughts, Arthur Schwartz, the West Village’s district leader, said, “I don’t think it’s conflict of interest. Conflict of interest usually involves money.” However, he added, “I don’t think it’s the smartest of moves. Perceptions are important.”

Schwartz, though, said if anyone had a conflict of interest it would be Li, not Stetzer, since Li is Stetzer’s boss and thus holds power over the district manager and her job.

For her part, reached by The Villager on Monday, two days before Li bailed out of the race, Stetzer said, “I’m sorry. I’m very, very busy. We’re doing our district needs” — the board’s annual statement to the city listing the district’s top capital-funding priorities for local projects — “we have a full-board meeting tomorrow night and I am extremely busy and I cannot speak right now.”

In addition, the suit charged, at least 50 petition signatures collected for Li were all written in what appeared to be the hand of one subscribing witness, Paulina Rosario, and so constitute forgery.

Li and a Chin spokesperson both did not respond to requests for comment for press time.

Chad Marlow ran against Li for C.B. 3 chairperson two years ago, losing by 31 to 15. He chose not to run again this June as Li won re-election uncontested. When he challenged Li two years ago, Marlow sharply criticized her leadership of the board.

Asked earlier this week about the allegations of substantial fraud in Li’s ballot petitions, Marlow said local politicos of course had all been buzzing about the lawsuit — but that even before the suit’s filing, he had been hearing anecdotal reports in the neighborhood of alleged petition improprieties.

“What I am hearing,” Marlow said, “is like the old Ronald Reagan line: ‘There she goes again.’”

He called Stetzer collecting signatures for Li “inappropriate,” and, like Schwartz, said Li is the one who is at fault.

For her part, Rajkumar collected about 3,000 petition signatures, in what her supporters said was a show of strength by her organization.

Without a Democratic primary opponent, Rajkumar declared victory Wednesday night. In a statement to The Villager, in which she thanked local elected officials who had endorsed her, she said, “It is my great honor and privilege to be re-elected as your district leader. I will continue to serve our neighborhood with dedication, energy and passion. I would like to thank my supporters from the Lower East Side, to Battery Park City, to Soho, to Chinatown for the movement we built together. … My focus remains fighting for my constituents every day to keep our neighborhoods affordable, create quality education for our children, and transform local government into a platform for innovation and inspiration. There is a lot of work to be done and I am ready to keep working for you.”

In a statement after Li’s withdrawal, Jeanne Wilcke, president of D.I.D., said, “Once again, the Downtown Independent Democrats prove that deep roots in the community, and the competence to organize them, matter. Getting 500 Democrats out of more than 13,000 in the district to sign a petition may not be a high bar — but it appears even with the help of City Council staffers, Ms. Li was not up to the task. In addition, given the gravity of the allegations against Ms. Li  brought up in the challenge to her petitions, it was prudent for Ms Li to step aside. We look forward to two more years of Jenifer Rajkumar’s outstanding leadership.”

Sweeney added, “Of course Gigi Li will deny her election petitions were not riddled with some 800 fraudulent signatures, which was the real reason she withdrew from the race. Otherwise how could Li ever explain the multiple photos and videos we have of the underage, high school kids that she enlisted to collect signatures for her?  Or care to address the 50 signatures — all in the same handwriting — fraudulently ‘witnessed’ by one of her petitioners? Ms. Li simply had no choice but to withdraw. There was no explaining away the photograph we will produce of a teenage boy collecting signatures on a petition for her, the same petition eventually signed off on by Margaret Chin’s chief of staff, Ms. Yume Kitasei.”

The Lower East Side Dwellers were also happy to see Li drop out of the race. Li temporarily “banned” the anti-bar group from C.B. 3 meetings for a few months two years ago after the Dwellers had the audacity to fight aggressively and independently — though sometimes outside of the C.B. 3 process — to keep more bars out of liquor license-oversaturated Hell Square. The Dwellers also issued a statement on Wednesday:

“After reading the lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court,” the Dwellers said, “it is understandable why C.B. 3 Chairperson Li may have chosen to withdraw from the race against incumbent Jenifer Rajkumar. We will leave it to others to comment on the serious allegations of election fraud in the lawsuit, and Gigi’s reasons for bowing out of the race altogether.

“Despite this being a challenging time for democracy in the Lower East Side, we have always been able to count on our district leader, Jenifer Rajkumar, to roll up her sleeves and help the residents of Hell Square. We will continue to work with her and all of our elected officials to make this a more livable and equitable city for everyone.”