Mayor de Blasio ran up as much as a half million dollars in personal legal expenses last year defending himself against investigations, according to records filed on Friday.
Annual financial disclosure forms posted by the city’s Conflict of Interest Board Friday show Hizzoner’s legal tab to Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel — which he retained around April 2016 — was between $250,000 and $499,999.
Probes by the Manhattan US Attorney and Manhattan District Attorney of alleged special treatment for donors to the mayor’s political campaigns and a political non-profit — which has since been shuttered — were closed on March 16.
That means the legal bills might be even higher than those reported in the disclosure forms, which only cover 2016 expenses.
The mayor has said he’ll launch a legal defense fund to cover the expenses.
“I am not a billionaire like my predecessor. There’s no way I could possibly cover these fees personally,” he said at a February 10 press conference in The Bronx.
But a legal opinion recently published by the Conflicts Board ruled that such a fund would fall under campaign finance restrictions, which severely restrict how much individual donors can give.
City campaign finance rules limit contributions from those with city business to $400. The maximum anyone can give is $4,950.
De Blasio has said he’d consider working with the City Council to alter the rules for legal defense funds, but no action has yet been taken.
The mayor also acknowledged earlier this year that he had yet to pay any of the bills owed to Kramer Levin.
“They’ve sent bills, we just haven’t had any money to pay them yet,” he said on Feb. 10.