Councilman Wants City To Cut Ties With Trump Following Cohen Plea

NEW YORK, NY — A New York City councilman is renewing the fight to sever the city Parks Department's ties with the Trump Organization and claims that Michael Cohen's guilty plea to eight felony counts stemming from hush money payments gives the city the rights to terminate its contracts with the President's company.

City Councilman Mark Levine — who represents parts of the Upper West Side, Harlem and Washington Heights — said that Cohen's plea deal represents "evidence that the Trump Organization has been deeply entangled in a criminal conspiracy."

Under these circumstances, there's legal precedent for the city Parks Department to cut ties with the Trump Organization, Levine claims. The Trump Organization — currently run by Trump's sons Donald Jr., and Eric — has contracts with the city to operate Wollman and Lasker rinks in Central Park, the Central Park Carousel and the Ferry Point Landing golf course in the Bronx.

In 2011, the Parks Department terminated the contract of a company called East Coast Golf, Inc. — which operated a golf course in Marine Park, Brooklyn — due to links to organized crime, Levine said. Levine, a former chair of the council's parks and recreation committee, called on the city to terminated Trump's contracts in 2015 due to the President's vitriolic rhetoric on the campaign trail, but there was no legal precedent to do so.

"The Trump Organization’s ongoing contracts to run four business in New York parks have long been deeply problematic for our city — with outrageously high fees to users, unfulfilled promises of public benefits, declining city revenue earned, and significant reputational harm for our city," Levine said Friday.

"It’s time for the City Parks Department to sever ties with the Trump Organization once and for all. We must free Wollman Rink, Lasker Rink, the Central Park Carousel, and the Ferry Point Landing golf course from the grip of a company which harms the interest of New Yorkers and violates the law."

In an apparent reference to Trump, Cohen admitted that he worked at the "direction of a candidate" to pay off the women to influence the 2016 election in violation of campaign finance laws, according to reports from the courtroom. Cohen reportedly arranged hefty payouts worth a total of $280,000 to the porn star Stormy Daniels and previous Playboy model Karen McDougal to keep quiet their alleged affairs with the president.

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