Mazi Melesa Pilip, New York’s 3rd Congressional District Republican candidate, had discrepancies between her May Nassau County financial disclosure and her recent federal financial disclosure for the special election, according to Newsday.
Pilip, a Nassau County District 10 legislator Pilip, is running in the Feb. 13 special election to finish out the term of Republican Rep. George Santos, who was expelled from the House. She is facing off against former Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi.
In Pilip’s federal financial disclosure for her special election campaign, she did not list assets that she had previously listed on her county financial disclosure last May, according to Newsday.
Included in her May county filing were assets such as medical startups and a co-op, which her campaign told Newsday was not necessary to include in the federal disclosure.
Newsday initially reported on Pilip’s financial disclosure discrepancies, obtaining the county records through a Freedom of Information law request.
They reported income amounts and ranges were redacted in the county records due to privacy, yet those figures were not redacted from the House filings.
Brian Devine, who took a leave of absence from the Town of North Hempstead to serve as Pilip’s spokesperson, told Newsday that the discrepancies in the filings were due to the startups not having been launched nor accruing any value, thus it was not necessary to report them on the federal filings despite including them in the county filings.
The co-op listed on her county filings and not on her federal filings is said by her campaign to be occupied by Pilip’s in-laws and provides no rental income. Her campaign told Newsday that lawyers advised her it was not necessary to include in federal disclosures.
“Any attempts to otherwise characterize the proper treatment of this property … are either based on a lack of reporting knowledge or politically motivated,” Devine told Newsday.
The co-op was listed on her county filings as an investment, Newsday reported.
Senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center Kedric Payne told Newsday that investment properties are required to be listed on federal disclosure documents even if they do not generate income.
On both disclosure forms, she lists income from her husband’s medical practice, New York Comprehensive Medical Care, Newsday reported, yet her campaign said she stopped working at the medical practice in 2021.
Pilip initially reported in her federal disclosure to the House of Representatives clerk that she had earned about $50,000 from her husband’s medical practice in each year of 2022 and 2023 as the practice’s operations director.
In a revised filing, she then reported no income earned from the practice in 2023 and just $13,472 in 2022.
Devine told Newsday that this revision, which was made days after the initial filing, was a draft and submitted in error.
Federal disclosures show that Pilip and her husband owe the IRS income taxes somewhere from $100,000-$250,000 as of April 2023, which her campaign said has been paid off already.
The county disclosure also reported debt to the IRS by the candidate, Newsday reported, but the documents did not disclose how much or when.
In Suozzi’s House financial disclosure, he reports $659.500 in income in 2023. The bulk is attributed to consulting fees, which amount to $535,000, listed under “Suozzi Consulting.”
The Democrat also reported an income of $35,000 from Hercules Pharmaceuticals, a wholesale pharmaceutical distributor based in Port Washington, and $82,500 from Global Industrial Corp, an industrial maintenance supplier with headquarters also in Port.
Suozzi’s disclosure also includes five pages of assets and investments amounting to a range of $4-$6 million.
