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‘WE WANT ANSWERS’
Locals demand explanation after Assembly staffer slapped with embezzlement charges
BY AIDAN GRAHAM
Sunset Park residents gathered
outside of Assemblyman
Félix Ortiz’s district
office on Friday to demand
answers after his highestranking
staff member was
arrested for allegedly embezzling
campaign funds
— but the lawmaker was nowhere
to be found.
“The allegations are
shocking, and we want answers.
We want to know
what exactly happened
here,” said Jorge Muñiz.
“This is a major crisis for
our democracy... we have
that money that people are
giving to better our democracy
ending up in private
bank accounts.”
Maruf Alam, 29, served
as Ortiz’s chief of staff until
his Aug. 8 arrest, when
federal authorities charged
him for allegedly stealing
$80,000 from a campaign
bank account through multiple
cash withdrawals and
personal expenditures between
2012 and 2019, according
to court documents.
Ortiz — a 13-term assemblyman,
who serves as assistant
speaker of the lowerlegislative
chamber — has
denied any knowledge of
Alam’s actions, and fired
the staffer following his arrest.
“I am personally appalled,
hurt, and disappointed
that an employee
would violate my trust,”
Ortiz said in a statement
on Aug. 9. “My constituents
come first, and they deserve
to know that public employees
are always working on
their behalf.”
But the group of Sunset
Park locals lead by Muñiz
— who has worked on political
campaigns to unseat the
assemblyman in the past,
and harbors a personal beef
with Alam, whom he claims
threatened to “skin Muñiz
alive” in 2014 — were
not content with Ortiz’s disembodied
statement, and
claimed he’s already lied
once regarding his knowledge
of the crime.
“Mr. Ortiz, so far, has not
made any real statements to
explain and account for what
happened with this money.
So, we have questions,” said
Muñiz. “He said in the press
yesterday that this was the
first time he was even hearing
about these charges.
Meanwhile, the FBI is in
court saying they actually
Maruf Alam was arrested by the FBI on Aug. 8 for allegedly stealing
$80,000 from a campaign bank account of Assemblyman Félix Ortiz.
Aidan Graham
interviewed him in March,
earlier this year.”
Seeking a face-to-face
meeting with Ortiz, some
constituents gathered outside
the assemblyman’s
Fourth Avenue district office
at 11 a.m., but the legislator’s
new chief of staff,
Karen Broughton, politely
refused to let them inside.
Instead, Broughton brief ly
addressed the crowd to say
the assemblyman was “trav-
eling, before handing out a
printed statement, and then
quickly retreating back into
the office.
One Sunset Park man demanded
the lawmaker come
out of hiding, saying the
public deserves to know how
one of his staffers committed
such a grievous crime.
“We need all of our elected
leaders to come forward and
be transparent and to be
honest with the public. We
need them to take leadership,
take responsibility for
their offices. That’s what we
want Mr. Ortiz to do now,”
said John Santore.
Another demonstrator
said the assemblyman
should accept responsibility
for the misdeeds committed
by his chief of staff and tender
his resignation.
“This is speaking to a
greater frustration that
we have. I think that Sunset
Park, Red Hook, South
Slope, everybody within
District 38 has had a lot of
frustration,” said Whitney
Hu. “He should resign.”
Magistrate Judge Steven
Tiscione released Alam
on $100,000 bail following
a preliminary hearing on
Aug. 8.
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