TPM Shag Fund Timeline (IRS MEMO: did Judy declare Rudy's security gifts as income?)

TALKING POINTS MEMO ^ | December 7, 2007 | Paul Kiel

[Liz]

It's not easy keeping track of Rudy Giuliani's shag-related expenditures of taxpayer money while mayor of New York. For one thing, it's impossible to get a total of the amount spent guarding the mayor's then-girlfriend. And the available records are spotty at best. But we gave it the ol' TPM try. So here, without further ado, is our timeline.

5/99 -- Judith Nathan and Giuliani meet at Club Macanudo, a cigar bar on the Upper East Side.

7/3/99 -- NYPD Officers charge the city for gas to "accompany the mayor to Southampton."

7/31/99 -- Four officers accompanying Giuliani stay at the Atlantic Utopia Lifestyle Inn in Southampton for $1,016. Giuliani had no events in the area that day.

8/20/99 -- Giuliani visits Southampton, where Nathan has a condo. He brings along his aide Manny Papir, and Manny charges the city for a room at the Southampton Inn for $331.16. That same night, Giuliani's four man security detail charged $1,704.43 at the same inn. Giuliani had a fundraiser on the 21st. Early 2000 -- NYPD officers start escorting Nathan around. Giuliani aides say that the protection at the time was "sporadic and did not include a full-time, round-the-clock detail." They cited previously undisclosed "threats" as the reason. But "former neighbors of Nathan's, as well as a law enforcement source, describe a full-scale valet service at Nathan's beck and call...."

4/08/00 -- NYPD officers charge the city for gas a half-hour from Nathan's hometown of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, where her parents live. It's unclear who they were accompanying.

5/10/2000 -- Giuliani announces that he will be separating from his wife, Donna Hanover. Giuliani tells the press that he and Nathan are "very good friends."

5/13/00 -- The New York Post reports that Giuliani's regular weekend visits to the Hamptons cost taxpayers at least $3,000 a day for his detail of NYPD detectives.

7/29/00 -- Three officers charge the city for gas and one night at The Inn at Baron's Cove in Sag Harbor in order to "advance/accompany the mayor to Southampton."

8/20/00 - Giuliani files for divorce.

1/12/01 -- The Post reports that two NYPD detectives have been assigned to guard Nathan from 7 AM to 7 PM, seven days a week. The Post explained, "Her security detail was upped from one to two detectives about two weeks ago after a New Yorker recognized her on the street, walked up to her and casually said, 'Hey, I know you. You're the mayor's girlfriend.'" Since the detectives earned overtime for the gig, the cost to taxpayers was estimated at $200,000 per year. The following day, Giuliani responded angrily, saying that the media should be "ashamed" and that if "you had any concern for decency, or people's safety, you'd leave it alone." Video available.

Then-NYPD chief Bernie Kerik said that the threat which had triggered the need for the detail had been more menacing than the Post described. Police officials told The New York Times that a man had identified Nathan by name, "made several threatening comments to her, then followed her," and then fled after she went into a store. Kerik wouldn't specify how much the detectives guarding Nathan are paid, only saying, "You can't put money figures on security. Security is security." Neither Giuliani nor Kerik disclosed that detectives had in fact been accompanying Nathan for approximately a year.

6/01 - The New York Post reports that Nathan's detail, temporarily ended after it was exposed by the Post early that year, has once again been reinstated -- even as the security detail for Giuliani's estranged wife had been scaled back. The piece was accompanied by a picture of a detective escorting Nathan while she walked her dog.

The Daily News later reports that during this time, "it was not uncommon to see Nathan being chauffeured around the city in an undercover Dodge with two detectives, who sometimes even helped to walk her dog."

8/3/01 - Detectives charge the city $1,371 for a stay at Southampton's Village Latch Inn.

10/20/01 -- NYPD cops accompany Nathan to her parents' home again in Pennsylvania. They charge the city for gas.

12/01 -- NYPD cops again accompany Nathan to her parents' Pennsylvania home. More gas.

1/1/02 -- Giuliani steps down as mayor.

7/10/02 - Giuliani's divorce with Hanover is finalized.

Andrew Berger provided research for this post.

[Liz]

The Timeline exposes three years of mayoral adultery/embezzlement/possible tax evasion and government fraud.........not just one year, as Giuliani would have taxpayers believe.

The tax-paid security for Nathan began in 1999 before anyone knew Nathan existed. So how could there have been a threat to her that required 24/7 protection in 1999? Nathan's security detail was said to consist of seven detectives and plainclothesman and an unknown number of tax-paid police cars at her beck and call 24/7. Witnesses told reporters Nathan‘s NYPD security was like a valet-taxi service, not 24/7 "protection." Other witnesses said Nathan’s friends were also picked up and driven around town by tax-paid NYPD security assigned to her.

More importantly, did Nathan and Giuliani satisfy all the taxable issues here? The relevant tax evasion issues:

(1) The IRS views Giuliani providing private citizen Nathan with a car service as income which she should have reported and paid taxes on.

(2) Giuliani’s providing Nathan private security with government personnel should have been reported; Nathan should have paid the actual amount the officers were being paid (or declared the security at the fair market price equivalent to hiring private guards).

(3) When public officials and government personnel use public facilities - airplanes, cars, lodging - for private or political events they are required to pay for the value of those services back to the city/state/Feds.

Nathan is past the three year limit on additional assessments for income tax but there is no limit if the IRS suspects fraud and tax evasion.

[Liz]

BACKSTORY Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani tapped the budgets of obscure city agencies to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel expenses in 1999 and 2000 when he was secretly dating future wife Judith Nathan in Southampton, according to a sensational report yesterday.

Giuliani's visits to the Hamptons cost taxpayers at least $3,000 a day in NYPD salaries and overnight motel lodging, The Post first reported in 2000. The latest bit of odd accounting was uncovered when auditors for City Comptroller Bill Thompson spotted a $34,000 expense for out-of-city travel at the Loft Board. It was mysteriously marked "prepayment for FY [Fiscal Year] 2001." The board's director insisted the tab wasn't run up at the tiny agency, which regulates lofts entirely within the five boroughs.

When the auditors asked for an explanation, City Hall balked, Thompson said in a Jan. 24, 2002, confidential letter to Mayor Bloomberg, then in his fourth week on the job. "We could not confirm whether those charges represented legitimate travel expenses for these offices," Thompson wrote. Auditors kept digging and turned up $143,867 in nonlocal travel at 12 small mayoral agencies in fiscal 2000, including $10,054 attributed to the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities. That was on top of the $165,985 in "nonlocal travel" billed directly to the Mayor's Office.

The auditors also found an astonishing $400,000 tab in "nonlocal travel" in fiscal 2001 at the administrative office of the Assigned Counsel Plan, which assigns lawyers to destitute criminal suspects. Overall, Thompson reported that nonlocal-travel expenses surged from $245,896 in fiscal 2000 to $618,014 in fiscal 2001 - a 151 percent increase.

Giuliani was asked about the report at the last GOP debate. "I had 24-hour security for the eight years that I was mayor," he said, noting he faced death threats. "And they took care of me, and they put in their records, and they handled them in the way they handled them. I had nothing to do with the handling of their records, and they were handled, as far as I know, perfectly appropriately."

[aynrandfreak]

TPM will show us the way /sarc

[Friendofgeorge]

I have heard enough!!! FRY THE B**TARD (Rudy G THAT IS)

[CyberAnt]

WHAT ..??

Why should she have to claim anything ..?? Rudy was entitled to security protection .. no matter where he was or who he was with.

I think this is much ado about nothing.

And .. NO .. I’m not supporting Rudy.

[Yaelle]

The American wild turkey is a textbook example of cooperative courtship, where subordinate male turkeys help dominant males attract a mate, even though they themselves do not get a chance to breed.

For example, in the wild turkey population that Krakauer studied at UC Berkeley’s Hastings Natural History Reserve in Carmel Valley, Calif., male turkeys typically paired up to follow groups of females and display in front of them. Both males would blush brilliant red and blue about the face and throat, fan their colorful tails and drop their wings, but only the dominant male would perform the classic strut – shuffling his feet and emitting a low drumming noise.

“While the dominant male was strutting, however, the subordinate might continue to display, like a back-up singer, or even chase away other males that got too close,” Krakauer said.

“Basically, since subordinate males and dominant males share some proportion of their DNA, the subordinate males benefit indirectly by helping their relative breed,” Krakauer said. “A subordinate partner gains more by giving help than it would by going off on its own and trying to breed by itself.”

He also looked for other possible benefits to the subordinate males, since in the case of two other birds thought to exemplify kin selection, other benefits were found to outweigh kin selection. In a group of New World tropical birds called manakins, subordinate males were found to help dominant males attract mates because they would eventually inherit the mating territory, which is jealously guarded.

From http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/03/02_turkeys.shtml

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

Rudy sure fits a democrat profile!

IT is for the planned murder of unborn babies!
IT is a big gun control nut!
IT covered for the invaders in ITS city!
IT surrounds ITself with queers and thugs!
IT has no morals or virtues!

Why does IT have an R by ITS name instead of a D?

[Liz]

Rudy was entitled to security protection .. no matter where he was or who he was with.

S-o-o-o-o true---hey, ya never know.

While Rooty was cutting the mustard with his mistress, the flakes threatening her might have wanted to lick the jar.

[AuntB]

Reference bump! Thanks, Liz.

[Liz]

You’re very welcome.

[CyberAnt]

Well .. I could do without the overly discriptive answer; if you get my drift .. and I hope you do.

But .. if the dems are going to use this against Rudy .. then WE HAVE A RIGHT TO BRING IT UP over Bubba’s “security” with all his bimbo erruptions. I don’t suppose anybody considered forcing Monica, or any of the others, to claim the security that was afforded them while they were with Bubba.

[maine-iac7]

Why should she have to claim anything ..?? Rudy was entitled to security protection .. no matter where he was or who he was with.

no one's questioning that = it's the extra protection Nathan was provided when he wasn't around - like when shopping, visiting parents, WALKING HER DOG -

You think taxpayers should pay that???

[maine-iac7]

Ummmm - is there a tie in somewhere here - or maybe posted here by slip of the keyboard???

Just curious ;o)

[razorback-bert]

It is good to be the King.

[maine-iac7]

BTW - there’s quite a piece in the current (Jan) issue of Vanity Fair mag about Juli

[Liz]

5/99 -- Judith Nathan and Giuliani meet at Club Macanudo, a cigar bar on the Upper East Side.

Club Macanudo, 26 East 63rd Street, New York, NY 10021 USA
Phone: 212-752-8200 Fax: 212-752-7770
Website: www.clubmacanudo.com Email: VMcKee@GCigar.com
Features: Smoking Allowed Indoors; Cigar Bar

An elegant oasis outfitted with mahogany furniture, buttery-soft leather chairs and cushiony sofas, Club Macanudo only feels like a private club. It is, at once, an ideal place for conducting business, enjoying a romantic evening for two, or catching up during a stylishly casual night out with friends. Complete with a state-of-the-art ventilation system, Club Macanudo offers a perfect environment for smokers and non-smokers alike. The Club consistently offers a welcoming atmosphere, a courteous, attentive staff and a connoisseur’s assortment of food, drink and cigars, including brands such as Macanudo, Cohiba, Partagas and Punch.

Club Macanudo has been profiled on the Food Network’s “Best Of” program and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and has been featured in USA Today, The New York Times and Time Out New York, among others.

Artfully-conceived meals and sinful desserts await you at Club Macanudo. Club Macanudo's world famous 63rd Street Martini is the toast of the town. See for yourself why the Food Network ranked it among the best of the best. No trip to Club Macanudo is complete without indulging in the signature chocolate truffles, a truly mesmerizing culinary experience.

[CyberAnt]

Well .. I’m not sure I agree with that part of it .. but what were the motivations for continuing her protections when Rudy wasn’t there ..?? If they were engaged - I can see where she might become a target of people - but if I read the story correctly - these were “secret” trysts.

And .. WHY WASN’T RUDY WILLING TO PAY FOR IT AT THE TIME ..??

I don’t believe Judy had enough authority to order protection for herself - the order had to come from Rudy himself - therefore - why punish Judy and not Rudy ..??

[Liz]

Another VF hit piece on Jooty?

VF did a hit job on her few months back, when Jooty "suddenly discovered" she had another husband lying around that she never mentioned.....not even to Rooty.

[Liz]

Giuliani’s security detail billed the city (read taxpayers) $1,371 for a
stay at the Village Latch Inn, Long Island on August 20-21, 1999.

Giuliani was at Nathan's Southampton condo at the time.

Village Latch Inn, Long Island. Gordon M. Grant for The New York Times