City's top attorney has Jets ties

Column by Juan Gonzalez

April 26, 2005

Another top aide to Mayor Bloomberg has emerged with troubling personal ties to the proposed Jets stadium project.

Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo has had to recently seek three separate opinions from the city's Conflicts of Interest Board on his role in City Hall's stadium deal.

Before joining city government, Cardozo was a partner at Proskauer Rose, the powerful New York law firm retained by billionaire Woody Johnson in purchasing the Jets. At the firm, Cardozo directed the sports law division, whose attorneys happen to represent not only the Jets but the Nets, the NBA and the NHL.

Since becoming the city's top lawyer, Cardozo has dispensed key advice to the mayor and other city officials on both the Jets deal and the proposed Nets basketball arena and housing development in Brooklyn.

But not until many months after Bloomberg publicly announced agreements with both the Jets and Nets did Cardozo bother to seek opinions from the Conflicts of Interest Board on the propriety of his involvement.

The City Charter forbids a public official from using his or her position for the advantage of any person or firm with which he or she is "associated."

Cardozo's first request for a conflict-of-interest ruling on the Jets came in a letter dated Sept. 27, 2004. That was a full seven months after Bloomberg unveiled his Hudson Yards and Jets stadium plans - and long after negotiations on the project started.

The Conflicts of Interest Board ruled two months later that Cardozo still has an "association" with Proskauer Rose, since he receives an annual pension that depends on the firm's continued profitability.

But the board permitted him to continue advising city officials, largely because of a written appeal from Bloomberg claiming Cardozo's "participation in the contemplated transaction involving the New York Jets is ... in the best interests of the city."

But that opinion set clear restrictions on Cardozo's actions. It ordered him not to "communicate with the League (NFL), the Jets, or their representatives [including but not limited to the Firm (Proskauer)]."

It also said that if the stadium project sparked any lawsuits, Cardozo would have to seek a new opinion and that "the Board will consider what role you may play, if any" in those lawsuits.

"This whole stadium project is rife with conflicts of interest," said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign, one of the groups that has filed suit to block the Jets project.

I asked Cardozo's spokeswoman Kate O'Brien Ahlers why he waited so long before requesting legal clearance of his stadium involvement.

"He was not involved in the original negotiations," Ahlers said. "As soon as he got an inkling there was a potential claim against the Jets, he sought clearance from the Conflicts of Interest Board."

But Cardozo's own letter to the board suggests a much broader involvement. "There are numerous planning, environmental and financial issues attendant to the transaction," Cardozo wrote. "As to any future litigation, should it occur, I will request that the Board consider, at that time, what role I could play."

Since his initial request for Jets clearance, Cardozo returned with another request on Jan. 6 for the board to rule on his involvement in two environmental lawsuits challenging the stadium.

This month, he returned a third time, asking the board to rule on his involvement in three new lawsuits challenging the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's award of the West Side railyards to the Jets.

The MTA, by the way, is another big client of Cardozo's old law firm.

"Michael received informal word that the Conflicts of Interest Board met last Thursday and gave approval to his participation in the lawsuits," Ahlers said.

Cardozo may have been slow to seek an opinion on his possible conflicts, but then was fast to act.

The day after he received informal word of the board's latest approval, he filed a seven-page affidavit in state Supreme Court against the latest rash of anti-stadium lawsuits.