A City Council candidate is accusing his opponent of shaking him down so he’d drop his bid for the Bronx seat, sparking an NYPD probe into possible criminal coercion.
Justin Sanchez, who dropped out of the Democratic primary, but will run under the Liberal Party line in the general election, claims rival Randy Abreu’s campaign contacted his lawyer threatening to expose him, claiming he improperly gathered signatures needed to secure a primary ballot slot.
“It is a scary, weird situation,” Sanchez told The Post. “You hear that Bronx politics are dirty all the time, but you’d never expect it to come from this progressive.”
Sanchez said his lawyer first received a threat from Abreu’s team over the phone on July 13.
Abreu spokesman Doug Forand said “We had information that Mr. Sanchez was planning to commit petition fraud. We made this evidence available to his attorney, and after consulting with his attorney, Mr. Sanchez decided to end his campaign,” said “He can waste the NYPD’s time with whatever baseless fantasies he wants to make up, but next time he should follow the law.”
Sanchez says any improper primary petitions were inadvertently filed with the Board of Elections.
“It was just a clerical error,” he said. “I’m running the campaign out of my living room. There are papers everywhere.”