New York City’s Top Watchdog Warns: I Have de Blasio in My Sights

NEW YORK — For months, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city’s top investigations official have been embroiled in a feud so toxic that it nearly led to the official’s dismissal.

The feud stemmed from a series of inquiries that found fault with New York City Hall. Administration officials disputed the findings and accused Investigations Commissioner Mark Peters of grandstanding.

Now, as Peters grapples with a critical report targeting his conduct, he is lashing back.

In a letter sent last week to de Blasio’s first deputy mayor, Dean Fuleihan, Peters made what some city officials have interpreted as a threat: He referred to “matters now being pursued by DOI in which the mayor himself, and/or his staff, are potentially a subject of investigation.”

Peters did not disclose the nature of the investigation, but mayoral officials believe he was likely referring to an inquiry begun several months ago: Did City Hall interfere for political reasons with an Education Department review of the secular education provided by some ultra-Orthodox schools?

The DOI inquiry into possible interference with the review of the schools, called yeshivas, was confirmed by several people with knowledge of the matter.

A City Hall official who reviewed the letter, dated Oct. 16, said it appeared to be part of a campaign by Peters to limit the damage from the report and, ultimately, deter the mayor from firing him. (In the report, an independent investigator found that Peters abused his power and, in retaliation, fired a whistleblower and demoted another.)

The implication was, “If you fire me, I’m going to make this really ugly for everyone,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a matter that is under review.

In the letter, Peters argued that City Hall should not have access to the report, adding that it should not be released to the public.

The letter, which Fuleihan shared with other top officials, was obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information request.

On Thursday, Peters disputed City Hall’s interpretation of the letter.

“It certainly wasn’t a threat,” Peters said, “both because the fact of the investigation going on was already well known to City Hall, and I don’t believe that anyone would seriously think that what we would do in our investigation would in any way be influenced by what City Hall does.

“We don’t permit noninvestigatory concerns to influence it," he added.

Peters said that he could not confirm a continuing investigation, including whether or not his office was investigating the yeshiva review, and suggested that more than one inquiry may be underway.

“If they believed this was solely a reference to any investigation involving yeshivas, that belief would be wrong,” he said.

There is no indication that Peters’ investigators have found evidence of City Hall interfering with the yeshiva review, but the mere existence of an inquiry could complicate matters as de Blasio considers whether to fire Peters over the whistleblower case.

No mayor has ever fired an investigations commissioner, and doing so could open de Blasio to the charge that he was seeking to quash a politically sensitive investigation that has put his inner circle under scrutiny.

The Department of Education began a review of the yeshivas in 2015, after complaints that the schools were not providing adequate education in nonreligious subjects, including math, science and English. The review, completed in August, concluded that 15 schools were either meeting state educational requirements or instituting improvements. Another 15 schools refused to cooperate, according to the Education Department. The review was criticized for its slow pace, its conclusions and for the city’s inability to obtain the cooperation of many of the schools.

Critics feared that the Orthodox Jewish communities served by the schools — powerful voting blocs that have supported de Blasio in the past — may have pushed City Hall to issue a noncritical report, and any evidence that the mayor or his staff sought to influence the review for political ends could be highly damaging.

The report on Peters was made public last week, a day after Peters wrote to Fuleihan. The report, prepared by an independent investigator, James G. McGovern, a former federal prosecutor, examined Peters’ takeover this year of the semi-independent office of the special commissioner of investigation for the school system.

The report concluded that Peters acted improperly when he fired the head of the office, Anastasia Coleman, and demoted one of her deputies. It criticized Peters for violating the city’s whistleblower protection law, abusing the power of his office, displaying a disregard for the truth, misleading the City Council in public testimony, and considering himself to be above the law.

Peters has publicly said that he accepted the recommendations in the whistleblower report, including the reinstatement of Coleman. But in the letter to Fuleihan, he criticized McGovern, saying that “his findings contain significant factual errors.” He did not identify the alleged errors in the letter.

Peters also accused the city’s top lawyer, Zachary W. Carter, of meddling in McGovern’s investigation. He said that a senior aide to Carter may have been in frequent contact with McGovern during his investigation and that the aide “offered Mr. McGovern future paid employment after his assignment at DOI was complete.”

Suggesting that this was an attempt to influence the outcome of the investigation, Peters wrote that it created, “at least, a perception of impropriety and has potentially tainted Mr. McGovern’s findings.”

McGovern, who was selected by Peters to carry out the independent probe of his conduct, declined to comment. The “future paid employment” that Peters cited was likely a reference to another investigation that McGovern was hired to perform. That inquiry centered on allegations that Peters acted abusively toward an official at the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, during a dispute over space at an office being renovated for his agency.

Eric F. Phillips, a spokesman for the mayor, disputed Peters’ characterization that hiring McGovern was an attempt to win his favor.

“There was no meddling,” he said. “It was an entirely independent investigation.”