FRINGE BENEFITS

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio Denies Using NYPD Security Detail to Shuttle Son to Yale University

The New York City mayor denied that he ordered the Executive Protection Unit to drive his son Dante back and forth from New Haven.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio denied using officers from the Executive Protection Unit to drive his son Dante back and forth from New Haven, Connecticut, during his first years at Yale. “I never ordered anyone to do anything,” de Blasio said during an interview with NY1’s Errol Louis. The New York Daily News ran a front page report Monday morning citing sources that said de Blasio ordered his NYPD officers to drive his son to and from Yale. During the interview, de Blasio said that cops decided on their own to provide the service to his son. The paper also said the mayor used the special security detail to send his son to visit an uncle, despite the younger de Blasio facing no security threats. The paper had previously reported that the mayor used the highly trained security officials to move his daughter Chiara out of her Brooklyn apartment. The trips generally consisted of two detectives, a driver and a second bodyguard in a follow-up car. De Blasio’s spokesperson Freddi Goldstein pushed back on the accusation. “The mayor and his family follow all ethics rules,” Goldstein said. “The mayor’s children are guaranteed NYPD protection, just like the children of prior mayors.” Earlier this year, de Blasio was criticized after it emerged that he covered up a car accident in which his driver was going the wrong way down a street in Harlem.