The taxi magnate who said he was subjected to a profanity-laced rant by Mayor Bloomberg has filed a federal lawsuit charging the mayor with threatening him and siccing TLC inspectors on his fleet in retaliation for his opposition to the “Taxi of Tomorrow” plan.
The suit, filed in Manhattan federal court late yesterday, accuses Bloomberg and TLC chief David Yassky of ordering inspectors to dump a blizzard of bogus tickets - totaling about $3.5 million - on cabs operated by Taxi Club Management CEO Gene Freidman.
“It’s deeply disappointing and terribly disturbing that the mayor will use his powers to try to beat people who disagree with him into oblivion,” said Steve Mintz, the lawyer representing Freidman.
The suit is an amended version of an earlier suit Freidman had filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, but contains the new allegations against Bloomberg and Yassky.
The TLC has imposed $85,000 in fines on one of Freidman’s medallions and similar penalties are in the works against dozens of other medallions, adding up to roughly $3.5 million in penalties, Mintz said.
Yassky, according to the suit, offered to revoke the fines in exchange for Freidman dropping his challenge to the mayor’s plan.
“In other words, Yassky was offering to exercise his discretion in a manner favorable to Freidman in exchange for a benefit in the form of political support for Taxi of Tomorrow,” the suit charges.
Freidman had originally sued the city to stop Bloomberg’s pet “Taxi of Tomorrow” plan, which would replace the existing fleet of hacks with new, gas-burning Nissan minivans.
A Manhattan Supreme Court judge ruled against the mayor’s plan last week.
A day later, as The Post first reported Wednesday, Bloomberg heaped abuse on Freidman in a private club at Madison Square Garden during a Knicks game, threatening to “destroy your f--king industry” once he leaves office in January.
“These are the acts of a big, bad bully. It’s Putin-esque,” a source close to Freidman told The Post this morning, comparing Bloomberg to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The amended federal suit seeks a jury trial and unspecified monetary damages.
Bloomberg spokeswoman Julie Wood scoffed at the suit.
“It’s not uncommon for disturbed and angry people to file lawsuits against the Mayor and the City of New York.
Actually the disturbed and angry person in this suit would be Mayor Bloomberg, who threatened to "f---ing destroy you guys" once he gets out of office in January.
If this suit is found to have merit and Bloomberg and Yassky really did offer to revoke millions in fines if Friedman would drop his lawsuit against the Taxi of Tomorrow project, then Bloomberg and Yassky both belong in jail for extortion.
Which is the least of it, but at least it's a start.A much better place to lok would be at his undue influence with law enforcement officals who are not answerable to him, such as Cy Vance,Preet Bharara,Richard Brown,Eric Schneiderman and whichever FBI prople he got to go after John Liu after he opposed the midget dictator.Then of course there's the perjury in the Haggerty trial,SAIC,City Time, the 911 fiasco, all the cooked numbers from NYPD to FDNY,to DOE, and the list goes on.UUltimately, the question will be as it always has been, what was his cut? Mayor $1 a year, my ass!
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right. Unfortunately this gets directly at the heart of the corruption in the system and there is no way this will be exposed.
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