And the person at the center of it was Andy King, a Bronx councilman whose brightly colored checkered suits and crisply knotted bow ties allow him to stand out in City Hall.
But the allegations revealed Monday by the City Council’s ethics committee were a visceral reminder of King’s troubled past, and raised questions about his future.
King was disciplined by the ethics committee in 2018 over a separate sexual harassment claim lodged by a former female staff member. In that case, the committee determined that King, a Democrat, violated anti-harassment rules in his dealings with the staffer, and ordered him to undergo sensitivity and ethics training.
Monday’s allegations were much more sweeping and were the result of what committee Chairman Steven Matteo, R-Staten Island, said were the result of a “preliminary inquiry.” Matteo spoke during the brief public portion of a committee hearing that mostly took place behind closed doors.
King did not immediately respond to a text message sent to his cellphone.
Matteo said that the allegations included a new sexual harassment claim and “numerous instances of misuse of city resources.” He said that King was also accused of allowing his wife, Neva Shillingford-King, “to perform Council business” in violation of nepotism rules, and of “creating a work environment where his spouse was permitted to engage in harassment of a council employee.” The harassment allegation involving King’s wife did not appear, from Matteo’s comments, to be of a sexual nature.
Shillingford-King identifies herself on a LinkedIn account as being an executive at Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union. A union spokesman said that he could not immediately confirm whether Shillingford-King was employed by the union.
Matteo also said that an employee in a supervisory role in King’s Council office was alleged to have “repeatedly threatened violence in the office and at work functions, and on at least one occasion the employee committed an act of violence against a subordinate employee.”
Matteo said that King had refused to cooperate with the committee’s inquiry or to be interviewed about the allegations.
Matteo said that “the committee voted to commence disciplinary proceedings against” King, and that an outside lawyer hired by the committee would further investigate the situation and make recommendations about how to proceed.
The Council has a range of disciplinary options if King is found to have violated ethics rules, including removing King from his committee assignments, fining and censuring him. King is the chairman of the Committee on Juvenile Justice. If investigators find that criminal statutes may have been broken, they could refer charges for prosecution.
In the previous sexual harassment case against King, a female employee made a complaint charging he had paid her unwelcome attention. She said that he had held onto her hand for a lengthy period of time while the two shook hands and he would not let go until, at his insistence, she smiled for him.
She also said that he asked her for her personal phone number, invited her to a fundraising gala and said that he would like to see her wear a beautiful gown to the event.
In that case, King, during a closed-door committee hearing, denied that he had broken any rules.
The ethics committee also addressed a separate case involving Councilman Barry Grodenchik, D-Queens, who has been under investigation for allegedly sexually harassing a female staff member.
Matteo said that the committee, after “a thorough and wide-ranging investigation,” voted to formally charge Grodenchik with violating Council ethics rules. He said that a hearing will be held May 13 to consider the charges.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.