Calls Mount For Scandal-Scarred NYC Lawmaker's Resignation

NEW YORK — A growing number of New York City officials have called for City Council Member Andy King to resign as he faces an unprecedented punishment for ethics violations.

Mayor Bill de Blasio joined council Speaker Corey Johnson's demand for the Bronx Democrat to step down Thursday after the council's Standards and Ethics Committee found he retailiated against staffers, potentially misused council resources and obstructed an investigation of his alleged misconduct.

"Some of the things I saw really surprised me and pained me," the Democratic mayor said at an unrelated news conference. "The bottom line is you have to cooperate with an investigation. If you don’t cooperate with an investigation, right there is a problem. And on top of that to retaliate against people who did, I think it’s disqualifying."

The mayor's remarks came a day after Johnson called for King to resign ahead of a Monday vote on stiff sanctions for his ethics violations, which also included harassment, disorderly conduct and conflicts of interest.

The ethics committee recommended the council suspend King for a month, fine him, remove him from committees and put an independent montior in his office. Those penalties constitute "the strongest sanction the City Council has ever leveled on a member of this body," Johnson said.

The council has also referred King's misdeeds to other agencies, Johnson said, though he would not specify which ones.

"I think it's going to be hard for him to discharge his duties as a council member given that there was a unanimous vote of his colleagues in the Standards and Ethics Committee, which believes that he violated numerous, numerous council policies and potentially laws beyond that," Johnson, a Chelsea Democrat, told reporters in City Hall Wednesday evening.

Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer also demanded King's resignation Wednesday and said the chamber should expel him if he doesn't leave willingly. The council could take that extreme step with a two-thirds supermajority vote, Johnson said.

"To the employees he abused, degraded, and retaliated against: I'm so sorry you had to go through this," Van Bramer, a Democrat who is running for Queens borough president, said in a statement. "To the people he supposedly serves: you deserve better."

Johnson would not go that far, saying he did not want to undermine the Standards and Ethics Committee's findings.

This week was the second time in fewer than two years that King has faced sanctions from the ethics panel. He was forced to undergo sensitivity training in early 2018 after the committee found he sexually harassed a staffer.

King's chief of staff did not immediately return an email seeking King's response to calls for his resignation. But the embattled lawmaker told Politico New York that the ethics committee's 48-page report on his misconduct was "their version of events to substantiate their agenda to the execution of me."

"I am currently out of NYC and paying respect to my father whom we buried two years ago today," King told the outlet, adding that he would address the controversy after he comes back to the city this weekend.