Hynes Worker Used Official Car To Campaign

A veteran detective investigator in the office of the Brooklyn district attorney improperly used a taxpayer-financed car with official government plates last week while distributing campaign literature for the incumbent district attorney, Charles Hynes, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office has acknowledged.The spokesman, Jerry Schmetterer, told The New York Sun that the detective investigator, Douglas LeVien, would not face any formal disciplinary measures. “What he did was wrong, and he has been told that he can’t do it again,” Mr. Schmetterer said.That acknowledgment came after one of Mr. Hynes’s rivals in the September 13 Democratic primary, Arnold Kriss, provided the Sun with photographs showing a Chevrolet Impala with official district attorney plates parked illegally at Winthrop Street near Wingate Field, which was the site of a public concert last Monday night. Mr. Kriss also provided photographs of Mr. LeVien standing with other Hynes campaign volunteers as they stumped for the four-term incumbent district attorney on Wingate Field. Mr. LeVien was wearing a Hynes T-shirt.Mr. Kriss said that he was not permitted to drive behind the police barricade at the Wingate Field event and that he parked several blocks away and walked to the field with a volunteer for his campaign. When he saw the district attorney plates on the illegally parked Impala and then recognized Mr. LeVien, whom he had met several times before, Mr. Kriss instructed his campaign volunteer to use her cell-phone camera to document the scene.In a phone conversation Thursday afternoon, the Sun informed Mr. Schmetterer, the Hynes spokesman, of the collection of 13 photographs compiled by the Kriss campaign. Minutes later, Mr. Schmetterer called back and said Mr. LeVien was informally admonished for misusing an official car.Mr. Kriss said that while he was at the Police Department, as a deputy commissioner for trials in the Koch administration, an officer who misused department resources for political purposes would have drawn formal punishment.“If a member of the Police Department, at any rank, was caught doing that, it would result in charges and specifications for conduct unbecoming a member of the police service, and disciplinary action would be taken,” Mr. Kriss said.Mr. LeVien, 58, is a retired Police Department detective who worked undercover investigating the mafia. During Mr. Hynes’s first campaign for district attorney in 1989, the New York Times reported that Mr. LeVien “accompanies the candidate everywhere.”Mr. LeVien did not return phone calls to his home seeking comment. Mr. LeVien is on-call 24 hours a day and therefore has access to an office pool car, according to Mr. Schmetterer.In addition to Mr. Kriss, the Democrats who are challenging Mr. Hynes in next month’s primary are the former chief corruption prosecutor in the state attorney general’s office, Mark Peters, and a state senator, John Sampson.Mr. Hynes received a boost yesterday when a prominent black minister, Reverend Calvin Butts III of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, endorsed the district attorney outside his church.Although Mr. Sampson is the only black candidate in the district attorney’s race, the other contenders are aggressively courting black voters. Mr. Hynes’s support in the black community dates back to 1987, when Governor Cuomo appointed him to investigate the death of a black man, Michael Griffith, in Howard Beach. Mr. Hynes secured homicide convictions against the three whites who were chasing the man when he ran onto the Belt Parkway, where he was run over.A March 2002 guide published by the city’s Conflict of Interest Board instructs municipal employees: “You may never use your City position to help a political candidate.” According to the guide, a violation of the city’s conflict of interest law is a misdemeanor that can be prosecuted by the district attorney’s office. Each violation can carry a fine of up to $10,000.

Hynes Worker Used Official Car To Campaign

Hynes Worker Used Official Car To Campaign

More from the New York Sun

Leader of The Second Intifada or Hamas Could Win if Palestinian Elections Go Ahead

Iowa Republicans Begin Sounding Alarm on Iran War as a Senate Race and Two House Seats Fall Into Toss-Up Territory

Trump Grounds Iranian Planes Worldwide After Pulling Back From Attacking Houthis

Policeman Stops Gunman Who Attacked Synagogue on Yom Kippur

Meloni Plans Burqa Ban in Italian Schools

Paramount Reaches Settlement With California, Paving the Way for Warner Bros. Discovery Deal To Close

Scientists Discover Early Warning Sign of Diabetes in Children

Italy’s Giorgia Meloni Channels Milton Friedman With a Tax Cut on Cars

More from the New York Sun

Leader of The Second Intifada or Hamas Could Win if Palestinian Elections Go Ahead

Iowa Republicans Begin Sounding Alarm on Iran War as a Senate Race and Two House Seats Fall Into Toss-Up Territory

Trump Grounds Iranian Planes Worldwide After Pulling Back From Attacking Houthis

Policeman Stops Gunman Who Attacked Synagogue on Yom Kippur

Meloni Plans Burqa Ban in Italian Schools

Paramount Reaches Settlement With California, Paving the Way for Warner Bros. Discovery Deal To Close

Scientists Discover Early Warning Sign of Diabetes in Children

Italy’s Giorgia Meloni Channels Milton Friedman With a Tax Cut on Cars