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Gov. Kathy Hochul’s husband Bill has been collecting scratch from the same hospitality and gambling giant showering state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie with cushy Boston Celtics tickets, The Post has learned.
Records show Bill Hochul has received nearly $200,000 in “deferred compensation” from his former employer, Delaware North, even though he claimed to have cut ties from the company — which just reaped an $18 million tax break from the state.
Hochul, after taking office in 2021, recused herself from all official state government actions involving Delaware North, since her hubby worked as the gaming giant’s top lawyer and senior vice president at the time.
But in 2023, Hochul issued a memo lifting her recusal, claiming there wasn’t a conflict of interest anymore since her husband was leaving the gambling and hospitality powerhouse — and would “have no financial connection to Delaware North following his departure.”
The memo said Bill Hochul “will not receive payment of any kind from Delaware North or its subsidiary entities” or “any other thing of value.”
Good-government watchdogs are now calling for a probe into whether the continued payments to the first gentleman over the two years since violate state ethics rules.
“The 2023 letter rescinding the governor’s recusals from matters involving Delaware North does so because her husband will no longer receive payment of any kind or any other thing of value from Delaware North or its subsidiary entities,” said Alex Camarda, a senior policy advisor at Reinvent Albany.
“Yet the governor’s own financial disclosure form appears to contradict that.”
Under the recusal policy, Delaware North could only lobby the governor’s office with executive clearance from the company — and was barred from making direct campaign contributions to the two-term Democrat.
But state records show that this year, the company directly lobbied Hochul’s office and her budget division as it and other gaming operators pushed for the massive slot machine tax break.
Delaware North also reported directly lobbying the state’s Gaming Commission and Heastie on the tax break, according to the records.
And the gambling giant’s billionaire owners — Chairman Jeremy Jacobs Sr. and other members of his family — shelled out $170,000 in donations to Hochul’s re-election campaign, the first time the family donated to her in more than a decade.
Several weeks after the tax break was quietly approved as part of the state budget in May, Delaware North also sent Hochul’s campaign a $2,500 check. It had also given $10,000 to the state Democratic Party during the budget negotiations.
“Campaign contributions have no impact on government decisions,” Hochul spokeswoman insisted in a statement Friday.
“As publicly disclosed in the governor’s taxes and financial disclosure statements, these withdrawls are part of the first gentleman’s deferred compensation plan, akin to a 401(k) or other retirement plan,” she said.
“This is compensation he earned during his time at Delaware North and elected to receive after leaving the company.”
Deferred compensation plans are types of retirement plans for high-earning executives to delay portions of their pay without IRS contribution caps, rather than a typical 401(k).
The state’s top ethics board said confidentiality regulations prevented it from commenting on the existence or status of a potential investigation into the payments.
“The Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government is steadfast in its commitment to bringing integrity, trust, and transparency to state government and to administering the State’s ethics and lobbying laws and regulations zealously and fairly,” a spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, it was revealed this week that Heastie and his staffers scored nearly $14,000 in luxury suite tickets from Delaware North, which owns Boston’s TD Garden where the Celtics play in March — less than three months before the tax break was approved.
Heastie, the powerful leader of the state Assembly, has a crucial role in crafting the state budget — which this year contained a total $242 million tax break for slot machine operators, including the $18 million to Delaware North, New York Focus first reported Thursday.
The Buffalo-based gambling giant is a registered lobbying client, which would normally bar it from gifting anything worth more than $15 to state pols.
But the company donated the suites to the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee that Heastie, a Bronx Democrat, helps lead — so it didn’t count as a gift under state ethics rules, according to the report.
Heastie refused to answer questions about the tickets and ran away from a Post reporter Friday at the Somos political conference in Puerto Rico, telling him to reach out to his communications team — which did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
