Nomiki Konst was one of more than a dozen candidates who sought the office of public advocate. | Stefan Jeremiah With taxpayer dollars flowing in, Konst's public advocate campaign accused of fraud

It was two months into his work on the Nomiki Konst campaign for New York City public advocate that her compliance aide, Jason Coniglione, said he began to suspect something was awry.

On Feb. 21, just five days before the election, the campaign received its tranche of public matching funds — a roughly $500,000 payment that matched each dollar Konst raised from small local donors at the city’s 8-to-1 rate.


The very next day, an invoice arrived at the Konst campaign office for nearly $90,000 worth of canvassing and field operations from a Louisiana firm called Deep South Political Consulting, Coniglione said.

By Coniglione's account, the invoice shocked Dominique Shuminova, Konst’s official campaign manager. For one, the campaign was already amassing an internal canvassing team. Why hire another? Further, the decision to hire Deep South Political Consulting hadn’t been run past Shuminova, he said. Coniglione, who’d recently gone through the city’s campaign finance board training, said the invoice itself was bizarre, asking for payment for services that hadn’t been rendered, and in one lump sum.

In the days that followed, Coniglione says he increasingly began to suspect something was amiss, eventually prompting him to file a complaint in April with the city’s campaign finance authorities alleging “massive fraud by the Campaign and Ms. Konst.” In his formal complaint, Coniglione says he suspects the campaign used public matching funds to “funnel” money to Konst's off-the-books, de facto campaign manager, a man named Lonny Paris.

Two days after Coniglione filed his complaint, Konst issued a public statement accusing Coniglione of being a “sexual predator” who used his position in the campaign to harass her — an accusation he emphatically denies.

The public advocate is an elected office with few enumerated powers but an outsize megaphone. The public advocate is supposed to act as a check on other city politicians and keep them honest on behalf of taxpayers. It is also often a launching pad for higher office.

Konst was one of more than a dozen candidates who sought the office. Coniglione’s allegations, if proven true, would represent a serious black eye for both her campaign and the city’s generous public matching funds system for any candidate running for municipal office, which advocates argue is key to getting more people involved in city politics.

The system became significantly more lucrative for candidates when city voters approved in November 2018, a ballot measure that expanded the taxpayer’s match for every small-dollar donation from 6-to-1 to 8-to-1.

In the public advocate’s race — an office with only a $4 million budget — taxpayers shelled out roughly $7 million in public campaign financing.

The allegations from within Konst’s campaign raise questions about whether she obeyed campaign finance laws and raise a larger issue of whether those laws are sufficient to protect the millions of public dollars going to campaigns.

“The Board does not comment on inquiries regarding complaints,” Campaign Finance Board spokesperson Matt Sollars said.

'A RED F-ING FLAG'

On Feb. 22, the day that Deep South invoice came in, a newly suspicious Coniglione decided to hit “record” on his cell phone. In the recording that he would later share with POLITICO, a voice he identified as Shuminova’s can be heard expressing concern about the invoice. She says Paris, the consultant some considered Konst’s actual campaign manager who is not listed in any official campaign paperwork, was insisting the payment was legitimate.

“He was obviously very stressed, when you said it’s a red flag,” Shuminova whispers on the tape to Coniglione. “And he tried to make it your fault. He tried to make it my fault.”

"Which is in itself a red f---ing flag,” Coniglione said, on the tape.

"I was like, if we’re going to spend $100,000 on anything, I have to understand what it is, I have to know that it’s real,” Shuminova said on the tape. “I have to make sure that things are done in a compliant way.”

“That meaningless snippet of recording is anecdotal and misleading,” Shuminova later told POLITICO, but did not deny it was her voice on the recording. In New York, it’s legal to record an in-person or telephone conversation as long as one party to the conversation consents.

Shuminova insisted the Deep South paperwork was actually just a proposal, though Konst herself describes the document as an “invoice” in a statement to POLITICO. Metadata associated with the document, shared with POLITICO by Coniglione, show it was created on February 22.

Coniglione’s complaint, Shuminova said in a text message, is “riddled with untruths and full of misleading anecdotes.”

Konst distanced herself from the transaction entirely.

“The actual operations of the campaign were run by the campaign’s manager and consultants, who I trust did their job competently and honestly,” Konst said in an emailed statement.

As her own campaign treasurer, she was “legally responsible for the overall conduct of the campaign and for every detail of the campaign’s financial system” under the city’s campaign finance laws.

“If there were an individual who submitted an invoice and was paid for work not done, then we will rectify that,” the Konst statement continued. “But this is part of the post-campaign filing process, and Mr. Coniglione, who never worked on a campaign before, simply was unaware of how these things happen.”

QUESTIONABLE ACCOUNTING

For Coniglione, a personal trainer who got involved in politics during the Occupy Wall Street movement, it was hard to know what was normal. Konst’s campaign was the first he had worked on.

But it wasn’t a first for Paris or Steve Kramer, two longtime New York political consultants who’ve worked for dozens of city, state and federal candidates over the past two decades. Kramer, who began living part of the year in New Orleans around two years ago, said he became involved with a New Orleans-based political consulting firm called Deep South Consulting around the time he began spending more time in that city. Deep South did not respond to requests for comment.

In a lengthy interview, Kramer, who runs his own get out the vote firm called “Get Out The Vote,” called himself an occasional “subcontractor” to Deep South. He did not define the exact details surrounding Deep South’s business relationship with the Konst campaign, or with Paris, whom he said he thought hadn’t previously worked on a campaign with the firm.

Kramer did, however, acknowledge he gave Paris a cut of the roughly $115,000 that he and Deep South Political Consulting were ultimately paid by the campaign. He just couldn’t remember how much.

How much is key.

The city’s campaign finance board requires all campaign subcontractors who earn more than $5,000 over the course of the campaign to be identified. But payments to Paris are nowhere reflected on itemized invoices the firm sent to the campaign, even though staffers say he worked on the campaign from its inception. And he doesn’t show up anywhere in spending disclosure statements made public by the city’s Campaign Finance Board.

After the Feb. 26 election, which Konst lost, having garnered just 2 percent of the vote, Deep South’s invoice was retroactively updated to include thousands of dollars worth of new expenses, such as live robocalls, according to copies of invoices shared by both Coniglione and Kramer. Metadata associated with the invoices shows when they were created. Coniglione said dozens of canvassers and multiple vans to transport them promised by Deep South Political Consulting didn’t fully materialize — but did appear on the invoice.

Kramer disputes Coniglione’s assertion that the Deep South get-out-the-vote operation didn’t fully materialize. He forwarded POLITICO an emailed receipt that showed the rental of four 15-passenger vans on the days right before the special election, from a New Jersey rental car company called Courier Car Rental, at a cost of $3,954.60.

But the receipt Kramer shared with POLITICO appears to have been altered so as to inflate the total price of the van rentals by nearly $1,400.

“Somebody definitely manipulated this, it looks like somebody definitely altered this,” the car rental company’s manager Jennifer Schlegel told POLITICO, when shown a copy of the receipt Kramer had shared as proof of his expenses.

The prices on Kramer’s receipt were “all significantly higher than our prices,” Schlegel said. “The base numbers they have in here are outrageously higher than ours.”

Kramer denied he’d altered the receipt but couldn’t explain the discrepancy.

Further, a pair of timesheets, written in different handwriting, with two different email addresses, showed someone with the same name simultaneously covering the same canvassing shifts.

Kramer said the time sheets were likely a mistake. He said the captains fill out timesheets for canvassers because many of the people he pays to canvass are illiterate, or prone to exaggerating the number of hours they worked.

It also appears to be a question of expedience.

On Feb. 28, two days after the special election, a person Coniglione identified as an associate of Kramer’s came to the Konst campaign office to pick up checks for Deep South. Coniglione recorded his conversations with the associate, as well.

In the taped conversation, the associate, whose identity isn’t clear, seems to suggest Coniglione alter a copy of a canvassing sheet, and then make a copy of it to make it look like the copy was the original.

“Ok. So it sounds like you need his originals that we can put ‘canvass’ on those, copy them,” the associate can be heard saying.

Coniglione showed the associate one of the copies and explained that alterations to the timesheets can only be done on the original forms, not on the copies, under the city’s rules.

Associate: “And you can’t write 'canvasser' in there?"

Coniglione: “No, 'cause this is a copy."

Associate: “And then make a copy of it again as though …”

Coniglione: “They’ll be able to tell. They’ll tell. They’ll be able to tell."

Associate: “Well if you write ‘canvass’ on that and then copy it it will all be a copy.”

Coniglione “So the problem with that is it’s against the rules.”

Associate: “Oh ok, yeah.”

Coniglione: “It’s like very strictly prohibited that you can’t alter copies.”

Associate: “Even if we don’t tell anybody?”

Coniglione: “Yes.”

In a subsequent interview, Kramer confirmed that an associate of his had gone to the campaign office, but said there was nothing untoward in their interaction.

“On certain campaigns I think we've neglected to put ‘canvassing’ or whatever ... and [the Campaign Finance Board] doesn't care,” Kramer said. “They were more worried about what the hours were. They were more worried about making sure everything was paid out the right way.”

Campaign Finance Board rules require that all records campaigns use to document their spending “shall be made and maintained contemporaneously with the transactions recorded.”

But if a record is “missing or incomplete,” candidates are allowed to create a new one or modify an already existing one, as long as it’s marked as a modified version and accompanied by a notarized statement from the candidate, treasurer or some other campaign representative “explaining the reasons for and the circumstances surrounding the creation or modification of a record.”

“It’s not, like, the proper way of doing business,” said Jonathan Yedin, a political consultant who does paid canvassing, referring to altering timesheets after they are signed. “I’m not saying something malicious is occurring, it just raises red flags.”

‘A PLANT FROM THE RIGHT’

On April 10, Coniglione’s attorney Arthur Schwartz sent a letter to the New York City Campaign Finance Board alleging that the facts surrounding the Konst campaign “suggest massive fraud” and the potential theft of thousands of dollars in public matching funds by members of the campaign. Schwartz sent a copy of the Coniglione complaint to POLITICO and the New York Post.

Schwartz worked for Jumaane Williams' victorious campaign and seemed to harbor a particular distaste for Konst. On Twitter, he called her a “phony” and a ”plant from the right.”

Two days after Coniglione’s complaint, and well after the campaign was over, Konst filed a report with the NYPD alleging that a month earlier, she had “had a verbal dispute with a suspect over work related issues,” according to the NYPD. “The suspect made threatening statements that caused the victim alarm and fear for her safety and life.”

She named Coniglione in her public statement. Asked why Konst waited so long to file a complaint, a campaign official speaking on background said it was because Coniglione had sensitive campaign documents in his possession — once he handed them over, Konst filed the complaint.

The case is now closed. No charges were filed.

Konst mentioned her interactions with the authorities in a statement she sent to her campaign’s press list just before 2 a.m. on Sunday, April 14 and that she tweeted to her 87,000 followers. In that statement, she called Coniglione a “sexual predator.” She called Schwartz “an obsessed attorney with a documented political vendetta against Ms. Konst.”

On Monday, Konst sent out another release, saying she is suing Coniglione for defamation and extortion. Now, Coniglione is planning to sue Konst for defamation, too, afraid he will lose his job as a personal trainer.

Eventually, Konst’s campaign expenses will receive an audit from the Campaign Finance Board, which performs a comprehensive audit of every campaign.

“The campaign finance board closely reviews all of these expenditures whether they’re utilizing public funds or not, as part of their very comprehensive post election audit, which can take a year and a half and sometimes longer,” said Alex Camarda of the government watchdog group Reinvent Albany. “Time and again when people have tried to cheat the system they get caught.”