Former Brooklyn District Attorney Settles Dispute With Conflict Board

NEW YORK — Charles J. Hynes, the former Brooklyn district attorney, has reached a settlement agreement with the city’s Conflict of Interest Board to end its inquiry into whether he improperly used his city email account during his unsuccessful 2013 re-election campaign.

Under the agreement, which was signed last week and was announced Tuesday, Hynes, 82, acknowledged that he erred in using the official account for campaign purposes and promised to pay a fine of $40,000.

“In the midst of a feverishly contested primary race, I made the mistake of using my city email for campaign-related matters,” he said in a statement issued by his lawyer, Jim Walden. “If anyone is to blame for this, it should be me and me alone.”

The deal with the board puts to rest the last of Hynes’ legal problems, which had plagued him since he retired after losing the 2013 primary race to Ken Thompson. Thompson went on to win the general election, becoming Brooklyn’s first black district attorney; Thompson died in 2016.

Later that year, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn dropped a separate and long-running criminal investigation into whether Hynes, who entered office in 1990, had illegally spent $219,000 seized from drug dealers and other defendants on a political consultant in his hard-fought campaign against Thompson.

In his agreement with the board, which was signed by its chairman, Richard Briffault, Hynes admitted that he had violated the city charter by using his official email to ask for endorsements, send campaign documents, prepare for candidate debates and communicate about fundraising matters.

In a statement, Walden called the settlement “a foot fault in the epic match” that Hynes had “played over 40 years of distinguished service to the public.”