Claims Of Armed Threats, Shoving Mar Harlem State Senate Race

HARLEM, NY — With early voting underway, a Harlem State Senate race has been marred by claims that an incumbent lawmaker and her staffers pushed and threatened a rival candidate, possibly with a gun.

Shana Harmongoff, a Democratic candidate in the District 30 primary, made a series of allegations Thursday against State Sen. Cordell Cleare, whose campaign categorically denied all of them.

"This has gone well past politics to now having to worry about our safety," Harmongoff wrote in a series of tweets Thursday.

"You would think that my political opponent would be professional while we are on the campaign trail. Sadly, that is not the case."

Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Cleare's campaign called Harmongoff's claims "wild and baseless accusations without an ounce of truth in them."

The most notable charge leveled by Harmongoff was that a Cleare staffer flashed a firearm at one of her own workers near a polling place on West 134th Street and Lenox Avenue Thursday morning.

Harmongoff told Patch that Cleare's "body person" was sitting in a car nearby when he pulled up alongside her own body person with a firearm between his legs.

The candidate noted she did not see the gun herself.

"I went up to the car where Cordell’s body person was. I said, 'What are you going to do, you going to shoot us?'" Harmongoff said, adding that the man then drove away.

A report was filed with the NYPD's 32nd Precinct, Harmongoff said.

An NYPD spokesperson confirmed that a 34-year-old man had filed a harassment complaint, saying a man in a red SUV had "threatened to fight him" while in possession of a firearm.

"The complainant stated that he was not sure if it was a real firearm," the NYPD spokesperson wrote in an email, adding that the man was never threatened directly with the gun. (Harmongoff disputed this, telling Patch that her staffer never expressed such uncertainty.)

The antagonism between the two campaigns stemmed from an altercation one day earlier at a senior citizens event, hosted by Cleare's government office, outside the Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. State Office Building on 125th Street, Harmongoff said.

Harmongoff, who arrived with a digital campaign truck and began passing out literature, said Cleare approached her and began "pushing and shoving me to move off of the property."

"She said, 'You can't do this, this is a private event,'" said Harmongoff. "I said, 'Cordell, you don’t have to touch me, I will leave.'"

A heated argument ensued, with more than a dozen staffers between the two campaigns shouting at each other, Harmongoff said.

One witness who attended the event confirmed to Patch that she saw some kind of scuffle, though she could not say who had instigated it.

Harmongoff's accusations — made Thursday on Twitter and in a Facebook video — were all denied by Cleare's campaign spokesperson.

"It is beneath the dignity of the constituents of this district to make such outrageous claims. This is a complete fabrication," the spokesperson said. "Our campaign works hard every day to engage authentically and positively with our neighbors and community members."

Harmongoff also made a third claim, denied by Cleare's campaign, that a woman handing out fliers for Cleare was escorting voters to the doors of the voting site at P.S. 175 on Monday or Tuesday of this week — an apparent violation of state laws that ban electioneering within 100 feet of a polling place.

Harmongoff showed Patch a letter to the Board of Elections describing the incident, which she said had been written by the polling site's coordinator. The BOE did not respond to questions about whether it had such a report on file.

Cleare, a longtime Democratic Party leader and former City Council candidate, is seeking her first full term in the State Senate after being chosen as the nominee to replace Brian Benjamin and winning a special election last fall.

Harmongoff, a former staffer in Benjamin's Senate office, is challenging Cleare for the second time, having won about 5 percent of the vote as an independent candidate in last year's special election. (Harmongoff had also sought the Democratic nomination months earlier.)

Harmongoff has the support of progressive City Councilmember Kristin Richardson Jordan, while Cleare has been endorsed by much of the city's political establishment, including Mayor Eric Adams, U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, Assemblymembers Al Taylor and Inez Dickens, and former Congressman Charlie Rangel.

The 30th State Senate District covers all of Central Harlem, West Harlem and Hamilton Heights. Its bounds shifted slightly during the recent, chaotic redistricting process, expanding to the east and west to cover more Harlem blocks while losing some territory on the Upper West Side.

Early voting runs through Aug. 21, with Election Day on Aug. 23. Find your poll site and view a sample ballot here.

Related coverage: Harlem Election Guide: State Senate Race, Congressional Primary

Have a Harlem news tip? Contact reporter Nick Garber at nick.garber@patch.com.