Campaign Finance Board Sues Former Queens Council Member For $10K

QUEENS, NY — The city's Campaign Finance Board contends a former Queens Council member failed to pay thousands of dollars in fines linked to public funds, according to a lawsuit filed in Manhattan's civil court this week.

The Board says it is owed more than $10,000 from former District 27 Councilmember I. Daneek Miller years after his successful 2017 re-election campaign, court records show.

The sum includes about $4,000 in matched campaign funds and $6,358 in penalties, both with interest, the lawsuit contends.

Miller — currently a district leader for the Queens County Democratic Party — told Patch in an interview Wednesday he was foiled by overly complicated funding regulations he didn't fully understand and that he plans to pay back the cash.

“Campaign finance is not easy to navigate," Miller said in an interview with Patch. "The likelihood of you running into problems with campaign finance is going to happen regardless of how careful you are.”

Miller, campaign treasurer Maurice Harrison and the Friends of I. Daneek Miller committee are all named in the suit that centers around the $116,196 the Campaign Finance Board provided the campaign in 2017.

The Campaign Finance Board contends that Miller agreed to certain rules when he accepted the public funds, primarily that he disclose how the money was spent and what on, court records show.

The CFB initially asked for a repayment of $105,181 in matching funds and $7,153 in penalties, but that was amended after it received documentation from Miller’s team on Aug. 21, 2019.

The complaint also said that he failed to pay back $4,303 in funds on Nov. 10, 2021. He also failed to respond to correspondence before receiving additional notices of repayment on Feb. 24, April 15 and June 14.

“At the end of the day, we turned in the receipts, but if they thought it wasn’t timely,” Miller said.

Miller said the issue is linked to laptops and printers purchased for canvassing during the final weeks of the campaign, which the former Council member said he needed and the Campaign Finance Board said he did not.

“They said, 'You bought these things in the last two weeks of the campaign, but you didn’t need anything,” Miller said.

“It’s the last week that really matters, when you are polling,” Miller said. “So you are spending money and you are not leaving money on the table when you know you have to campaign for a general election as well.”

"Considering the amount of money that was raised and the amount of money that was disputed, we ended up with the receipts," Miller added. "But whatever confirmation they were asking for, they thought it wasn’t valid.”

In 2013, Miller, a then transit union leader, beat out five candidates to run as the Democratic candidate for City Council District 27 and won the general election with over 96 percent of the vote. In 2017, he beat perennial candidate Anthony Rivers, a former U.S. Marine and retired police officer, in a landslide victory.

Miller said his team, which he trusts, took some of the courses and did their due diligence, but some of it “was beyond their skillset.”

“We will fundraise and make sure we are paying everything off,” Miller added. “Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t have seen it as necessary. We had means of raising funds with me as an incumbent and my background in labor.”