BREAKING: Prosecutors Probe NYC Councilwoman’s Hubby in Developer Shakedown Scandal
Put It In Writing: Texts show Kevin Barry Love invoking his wife’s office in threats
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By M. Thomas Nast with Richard Luthmann
New York state and federal prosecutors are investigating explosive allegations that Kevin Barry Love – husband of NYC Council Member Kamillah Hanks – made threats, both verbally and through text messages, to Staten Island real estate developers and others, leveraging his wife’s City Council office for personal gain.
Sources say multiple developers have turned over texts and recordings in which Love brazenly dangled Hanks’s official “largesse” – such as funding, approvals, and access – and issued coercive ultimatums to push favored deals. Both the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and New York Attorney General Letitia James are reviewing the evidence, according to insiders.
This outlet has reviewed some of the messages. We will not publish them at this time to avoid compromising the ongoing investigation or putting potential witnesses at risk.
Prominent Staten Island Democrats say that they are already preparing for a special election, believing an indictment and scandal will topple Hanks within a matter of months.
“I can’t believe Kevin Barry Love put it in writing,” said an astonished Richard Luthmann of the shakedown texts. Luthmann is a contributor to this outlet who has a long and sordid history with Hanks, Love, and their political allies.
The inquiry could mark a turning point for Hanks’s scandal-plagued North Shore political machine. Love’s reputed threats to developers follow a pattern of thuggish behavior that has already drawn scrutiny from city, state, and federal authorities. Connections reach all the way to District Attorney Michael E. McMahon and his political machine.
The big question now: will these text messages be the smoking gun that brings down this notorious Staten Island power couple?
Prosecutors Probe NYC Councilwoman’s Hubby: A “Straight-Up Thug” with a History of Extortion and Threats
Love’s modus operandi has long been intimidation, say those who’ve dealt with him. He has been recorded boasting of his influence and wielding his wife’s council clout as a weapon.
In one case, Love phoned a collections lawyer across state lines and threatened to “unleash the FBI and DOJ” on them if they dared seek payment from him. (The attorneys wisely taped the call as evidence.)
Court filings show Love even legally admitted to these threats – and to using connections at City Hall to bully anyone who tried to collect debts from him.
“Kevin’s not just a deadbeat, he’s a bully. Everyone knows it,” said one former campaign worker whom Love stiffed on pay.
Love cultivated an image as Hanks’s enforcer and boasted of untouchability. Earlier this year, amid Hanks’s re-election race, Love made a menacing “Winter is Coming” post – a Game of Thrones reference widely read as a veiled threat.
Sure enough, multiple whistleblowers accused Love of threatening a Muslim community activist, Ibrahim Kurtuluş, who criticized Hanks.
Those threats – including graphic allusions to violence – are now part of official complaints and investigations.
Yet Staten Island’s District Attorney, Michael McMahon, never charged Love. Instead, McMahon’s silence effectively gave his political ally a free pass. This emboldened Love to continue his hardball tactics.
Until now.
With the feds in play, sources say Love’s “tough guy” act may finally have met its match. Love and his associates’ alleged conduct implicates several federal and New York State public-corruption laws.
At the federal level, prosecutors generally target extortion, bribery, and fraud when private actors leverage a public official’s office for personal gain. The Hobbs Act (18 U.S.C. § 1951) criminalizes obtaining property or concessions through coercion, threats, or fear, and is often the core statute in corruption cases involving threats tied to official influence.
Federal bribery laws (18 U.S.C. § 666) cover corrupt payments or promises of value to influence or reward an agent of local government; even a private intermediary can be charged as the “giver.”
Schemes that involve communications across state lines can trigger wire and mail fraud charges (18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1346) under an honest-services theory, while interstate threats for extortion may implicate 18 U.S.C. § 875.
Prosecutors can also use the Travel Act (18 U.S.C. § 1952) to reach interstate promotion of unlawful activity, conspiracy statutes (18 U.S.C. § 371) to link co-conspirators, and even RICO (18 U.S.C. §§ 1961–1962) where there is a pattern of racketeering activity.
Under New York State law, alleged threats and coercion tied to public office can violate several criminal statutes. Grand larceny by extortion targets obtaining property through fear or the use of official power.
Coercion in the third degree criminalizes compelling action by threats that include abuse of an official position.
State bribery statutes (N.Y. Penal Law §§ 200.00, 200.10) cover offering or receiving benefits to influence official acts, and rewarding official misconduct (N.Y. Penal Law § 200.20) hits those who confer benefits for wrongful acts by a public servant.
Related offenses include official misconduct (N.Y. Penal Law § 195.00), scheme to defraud (N.Y. Penal Law § 190.65), and enterprise corruption (N.Y. Penal Law § 460.20), where repeated criminal acts form a pattern.
New York also has general conspiracy and attempt provisions that can attach to agreements to commit corruption offenses.
These statutes collectively provide law enforcement with numerous avenues to charge both officials (like Hanks) and private actors (like Love) involved in coercion, bribery, and extortion tied to public office.
Prosecutors Probe NYC Councilwoman’s Hubby: Indictment Rumors and Democrats Bracing for Fallout
Inside Staten Island political circles, talk of an impending indictment is rampant.
“Everyone’s preparing for the other shoe to drop,” confided a North Shore Democratic insider.
Many believe Love will be criminally charged for extortion and public corruption-related crimes– and that the ripples could imperil Councilwoman Hanks and others profiting from her public office.
“They were using her City Council seat like a personal piggy bank,” the source added, alluding to the alleged developer shakedowns.
Even if Hanks isn’t directly charged, her political career probably won’t survive the stain. Party activists are already gaming out a special election to replace her in Council District 49.
Names being floated include community leader Jozette Carter-Williams and activist Abou Diakhate, two Democrats Hanks’s camp had previously tried to sideline. (Hanks’s allies knocked Carter-Williams off the primary ballot earlier this year in an election law operation led by McMahon-connected fixer Carmen Cognetta.)
Now the tide may be turning. Hanks just won re-election in June – but, as one observer quipped, “Kamillah Hanks wins dirty.” Her campaign was marred by racism and retaliation scandals, and “Don’t Rank Hanks” became a rallying cry among fed-up voters.
Several prominent Democrats pointedly withheld their endorsements of Hanks during the race. Then-party chair Laura Sword and now-party chair and NYS Assemblyman Charles Fall kept their distance, leaving Hanks clinging to DA McMahon’s patronage machine for support.
That machine may soon collapse. A well-known Manhattan Democratic consultant said a Love indictment – and any dirty laundry it airs – would make Hanks’s position “untenable.”
“If [Kamillah Hanks] doesn’t realize it herself, she will be brought in and told to resign almost immediately after the indictment drops,” the consultant said.
North Shore progressive Democrats are on alert, ready to move on “the minute Kamillah falls,” the source said. Staten Island’s lone Democratic council seat could soon be up for grabs in a fierce special election.
Prosecutors Probe NYC Councilwoman’s Hubby: DA McMahon’s Connections Under the Microscope
This scandal’s shockwaves also threaten Staten Island District Attorney Michael E. McMahon, a powerful Hanks ally now facing uncomfortable questions. McMahon championed Hanks’s rise, even dispatching disgraced ex-Judge Carmen Cognetta to knock her rivals off the ballot.
He then launched a highly unusual “Special Squad” crackdown targeting supporters of Hanks’s opponents, interrogating volunteers for minor petition errors. Critics call it blatant political retaliation designed to shore up the Democratic machine’s power.
Yet when Love was caught threatening Muslim activists, McMahon did nothing.
“McMahon’s political ally, Kevin Barry Love…was threatening Muslims and Hanks was abusing Muslim staff,” journalist Luthmann recounts. “But no charges, no public rebuke has followed. Not yet, anyway. But Mike was the first to send out his special detectives to investigate clerical errors in the election petition. Maybe they should talk to Quentin Smith and William Peck first. Oh wait. Quentin is in Ohio, and William Peck is dead. But they both signed for Tax Hike Mike in 2015!”
Evidence suggests McMahon’s office tried to cover up and attack Luthmann’s journalism.
In July, McMahon’s team secretly issued a fraudulent NYPD “arrest on sight” alert (an ICARD flag) targeting Luthmann right after he exposed Hanks’s Islamophobia scandal. The ICARD, larded with lies, stated that Luthmann was a present in NYC and McMahon feared for his life. It was never presented to a judge and still remains on the books.
An NYPD detective was caught on tape admitting that with McMahon as the “victim,” he could bend the law and “get whatever I want.”
The brazen misuse of power reeks of a cover-up to protect McMahon’s friends at the expense of justice. Now McMahon’s entanglement with Love raises further red flags.
Not only did McMahon overlook Love’s misconduct, but he’s also personally intertwined with the same players. Embattled Councilwoman Hanks received campaign cash from indicted and imprisoned drug kingpin Ettore Mazzei, who sat on her nonprofit’s board. Now, McMahon’s office prosecutes Mazzei in a major narcotics case.
In fact, Hanks and Love have legally admitted to business dealings with Mazzei, including transactions involving narcotics. That astonishing admission suggests Love was literally in business with the alleged drug lord McMahon is putting on trial.
“How can they have a common partner and not scream impropriety?” Luthmann asked.
The optics are so toxic that observers have wondered whether McMahon’s wife, Judge Judith “Judy” McMahon, abruptly resigned from the bench to avoid the fallout. (Judge McMahon, 68, suddenly retired mid-term; officially it’s “age,” but insiders whisper it’s because she saw the writing on the wall.)
The once “invincible” McMahon machine is wobbling, hammered by scandal and “thrown on the defensive.” Former allies are said to be turning state’s evidence, and the dynasty looks like a house of cards on the brink of collapse.
As the federal and NYS probes into Kevin Love’s developer threats accelerate, pressure is mounting on DA McMahon. Will he continue shielding his cronies, or finally distance himself from Love’s dirty dealings?
Some speculate McMahon might even sacrifice Love to save his own skin, bringing a pre-emptive indictment against his fellow Irishman.
For years, McMahon’s motto appeared to be “for my friends, anything; for my enemies, the law.” Now, with federal eyes on Staten Island, that old protection racket is collapsing.
The ultimate outcome could upend the borough’s political order. As one veteran observer put it, “The jig is up.”
The era of intimidation and backroom deals is coming to a head – and Staten Island’s power players are sweating. All eyes are on the prosecutors to see if they’ll deliver the final blow that sends this Democrat Deadbeat Duo and their enablers tumbling down.
