Nonprofit run out of Adams’ office hit up donors before city OK

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By Yoav Gonen

July 5, 2014 | 3:02am

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams Photo: Riyad Hasan

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Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams waited months after soliciting donations for a nonprofit run out of his office before filing the necessary permission forms with the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, documents show.

He also didn’t register the nonprofit with the New York Department of State until three weeks after The Post reported he was being probed by the city’s Department of Investigation over the matter.
Records show that One Brooklyn Fund was registered March 20, well after Adams’ aides began publicly seeking donations for it.
It wasn’t until last week that the city’s conflicts board gave the borough president and his staffers the OK to begin raising funds for the group, even though the nonprofit’s first meeting was held March 26.
“All solicitations must make clear that the donor will receive no special access to the Brooklyn Borough President or to the Office or preferential treatment as a result of a donation,” the conflicts board wrote in its approval letter.
The board also required that donations be disclosed every six months.
Asked about the timing surrounding the launch of the non-profit and its approval from the city, Adams spokesman Stefan Ringel said the group’s certification had been achieved “based on the process directly outlined to us by the Conflicts of Interest Board.”
The group is designed “to provide and support services, programs and free events to the residents, businesses, community-based and cultural institutions, and general community of Brooklyn,” according to its conflicts board approval.
Two of the five board members on the fund have drawn scrutiny for their prior nonprofit work.
Valerie Oliver-Durrah, who’s paid nearly $83,000 a year for 21-hour work weeks as Adams’ senior adviser for strategic alliances, runs a taxpayer-funded nonprofit out of her home that’s under investigation by the city for conflicts-of-interest violations.
Fellow board member Winnie Greco, Borough Hall’s volunteer liaison with the Chinese community, runs a fledgling nonprofit that paid $7,000 for Adams and a top deputy to travel to China for 11 days. But that group, the Sino-America New York Brooklyn Archway Association Corp, has been unable to say where it got the money.