He’s removed from an angel.
Whereas Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa has been having fun with the limelight on the marketing campaign path, his colourful previous is catching as much as him.
Former impartial mayoral candidate Jim Walden, who dropped his personal long-shot marketing campaign and backed ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s bid, rehashed a slew of scandals, allegations and sagas from Sliwa’s a long time in Huge Apple politics Monday.
Walden’s “opposition analysis” dump got here as Republican nominee Sliwa continued to buck the crescendo of requires him to ditch his mayoral bid in an effort to unite voters behind Cuomo’s impartial marketing campaign — and towards far-left Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani.
“We have to unify to defeat @ZohranKMamdani,” Walden wrote on X. “For all of the Curtis supporters prone to assault me, perceive I’m nonetheless making an attempt to be light. I don’t get pleasure from this. However I’m placing NYC first.”
The thread included mentioning that Sliwa’s purple beret-wearing vigilante group allegedly misplaced its tax exempt standing years in the past, however was nonetheless soliciting donations on its web site, a doable violation of federal legislation.
The thread continued to spotlight components of the feline-loving founder’s checkered historical past, together with notorious hoax crimes Sliwa admitted he made as much as get elevated publicity for the Guardian Angels.
Sliwa admitted to the New York Occasions in 1992 that six of his group’s early “crimefighting” ventures have been nothing greater than stunts, together with faking the rescue of a subway mugging “sufferer” who merely fell and mendacity about getting injured whereas combating “a number of rapists” at a Brooklyn subway station.
On-line IRS data present that the group misplaced each its federal and state tax-exempt standing in November 2022 attributable to an obvious failure to file federal tax varieties since 2019.
Reached for remark by The Submit, Sliwa’s marketing campaign argued the discrepancy was attributable to defective data dealt with by Rafael Alvarez, the group’s former treasurer who pleaded responsible final yr to submitting hundreds of defective tax returns totaling $145 million.
“That’s outdated information. The Guardian Angels have been defrauded years in the past by a former accountant who didn’t file the paperwork. It’s all been corrected, the organizing is full updated and in good standing,” Sliwa marketing campaign spokesman Daniel Kurzyna mentioned in a press release.
Past controversies tied to his crime-fighting group, Sliwa has additionally been accused of creating antisemitic and sexist feedback and has confronted warmth over his private life, too, as recalled by Walden.
Resurfaced video exhibits Sliwa ranting about Orthodox Jews, stating that they’re “ready bodied males who examine Torah and Talmud all day and we’re subsidizing them, and all they do is make infants like there isn’t any tomorrow. And who’s subsidizing them? We’re!”
When the problem was raised throughout his failed 2021 mayoral bid towards Eric Adams, Sliwa didn’t disavow his remark, however supplied to satisfy with Orthodox Jews to “resolve our variations.”
“Curtis apologized and met with Orthodox leaders way back,” Kurzyna mentioned, claiming that Sliwa has labored with Jewish communities, together with in Crown Heights, for many years.
“Whereas Cuomo was sipping wine on the Governor’s Mansion, Curtis was strolling the streets retaining individuals secure,” he mentioned.
However Sliwa has additionally landed himself in scorching water over different controversial remarks about Jewish individuals.
Whereas speaking about antisemitism in an interview with an Israeli broadcaster, he mentioned, “I’m a gentile, it’s in our DNA.”
Sliwa, who has two Jewish kids with Queens District Lawyer Melinda Katz, later advised the Jewish Telegraphic Company that he “used the unsuitable time period” and meant to say that antisemitism was typically “fed into the minds” of non-Jews.
The 4 time married and self-declared “serial partner” raised eyebrows over his love life, too.
His third spouse Mary Paterson – who’s at present married to ex-Gov. David Patterson – sued Sliwa for allegedly holding out on over $530,000 in unpaid baby help for his or her particular wants baby, as talked about in Walden’s thread.
The case has since been settled and Sliwa’s rep famous that it stemmed from a bitter divorce.
“Like all divorce, there are disagreements. Curtis loves his three boys and has all the time paid his justifiable share and extra,” Kurzyna mentioned.
“It is a personal household problem that doesn’t belong within the press.”
