NYC Council Chaos: Luthmann Goes Legal Against Hanks and Love for Corruption, Fee Evasion
NYC Council Chaos: Luthmann Goes Legal Against Hanks and Love for Corruption, Fee Evasion
Staten Island Power Pair Faces Frenzied Former Fiduciary's Fury Over Unpaid Campaign Bills
By Dick LaFontaine
Richard A. Luthmann filed a lawsuit against several prominent defendants, including NYC Council Member Kamillah M. Hanks, her NYC Council campaign committee, and her partner and NYC real estate investor Kevin Barry Love. He owns several commercial, rent-producing properties in the NYC Council District Hanks represents.
Luthmann, proceeding pro se, alleges Hanks and Love engaged in corrupt and criminal acts. They wanted to avoid paying Luthmann’s lawfully earned legal fees of over $87,000, and they didn’t mind lying to land him in jail.
Hanks did not pay Luthmann for campaign work in 2017. She ran against incumbent NYC Council member Debi Rose, who won the election.
After Rose reached term limits in 2021, forcing her to vacate the seat, Hanks finally won.
The Staten Island power couple thought they could skip out on Luthmann’s bill. The former attorney was in federal prison from December 2017 to April 2021.
The statute of limitations on contracts is six years, so Luthmann still had time to collect.
Luthmann Was NYC Council Member Hanks and Love’s “Family Lawyer”
![Kamillah Hanks [c] campaigns with Richard Luthmann [r] at the 2017 Fourth of July Parade in Travis, Staten Island.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4fc2dcee-4c18-4c5d-985b-a5d6deb841c5_720x960.jpeg "Kamillah Hanks [c] campaigns with Richard Luthmann [r] at the 2017 Fourth of July Parade in Travis, Staten Island.")
Luthmann personally represented Hanks, a community activist, political candidate, and now a member of the NYC Council. Members of her family, including Love, were also his clients. Luthmann represented their business, personal, and political interests. Luthmann was Hanks and Love’s “family lawyer.”
In 2017, that was clear to everyone. Luthmann sued to help Hanks’ daughter graduate high school. He claims they never even paid him the filing fee.
“Mr. Luthmann rendered services for Ms. Hanks and her ‘husband,’ Kevin Love…her daughter, Nadia Hanks, and her 2017 political campaign for NYC Council…Hanks 2017. These included cases for Mr. Love against BWM and others, for Ms. Nadia Hanks to allow her to graduate high school…and against Phillip R. Marius, a 2017 primary election opponent of Ms. Hanks,” the papers say.
In March, Luthmann filed the initial collections lawsuit. In Luthmann v. Hanks et al., he was represented by counsel.
Love’s Menacing Phone Calls and Interference On Behalf of NYC Council Member Hanks
While Luthmann’s original collections case was pending, Love made menacing phone calls to his collections lawyers across state lines. Love threatened the attorneys with grievances against their licenses, civil lawsuits, FBI and DOJ activity, and other negative personal consequences. Backed by the perceived largesse and connections of Hanks’ NYC Council office, Love managed to intimidate Luthmann’s lawyers. Love insinuated he had the power to control law enforcement, and they were spooked.
But Love didn’t outsmart the lawyers, who managed to capture the entire sordid conversation on tape. Here is a clip:
Love’s alleged false statements and audacious activities hurt Luthmann, who remains under supervision after his release from federal prison. He says Love, working on Hanks’ behalf, manipulated the US Probation Office and the federal government to improperly infringe upon his rights. It also cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Hanks, Love, and others tried to do him dirty from afar. They wanted Luthmann “busted” back into jail on a “violation.”
They claimed “harassment” to stop Luthmann’s collections cases and his budding journalism career dead in their tracks. They didn’t like what Luthmann was saying or doing, even though it was 100% legal and 100% true.
Love contacted federal agents, characterizing Luthmann’s actions as “tampering” and asserting that he and NYC Council member Kamillah Hanks were “witnesses” in his federal prosecution. They never were. That was a lie.
Luthmann says Love is in big trouble because he can prove that the NYC Council member’s partner brazenly violated 18 USC § 1001, a federal felony charge for giving false statements to federal agents.
Love’s Lies Fool the US Probation Department
Love, Hanks, and the rest had the upper hand in April. Probation told Luthmann he could not practice journalism, associate with other journalists, petition the courts for redress or write about the government, Chris Ambrose, Kamillah Hanks, Kevin Love, or Ronald Castorina. They wanted Luthmann to “cease and desist from making slanderous and libelous statements about other people.”
Probation told Luthmann’s attorneys they had to engage in an “appropriateness review” of the collections. They would not let Luthmann collect a past debt from Newsmax personality John Tobacco, a former client, even though the lawyers had hammered out a deal with the media figure.
Things got too hot to handle, and the collections lawyers dropped Luthmann as a client. They filed voluntarily dismissals of the filed collections cases without giving Luthmann the courtesy of a phone call.
The papers say that after the fact, one of the lawyers told Luthmann, “I don’t want them to do to me what they’ve done to Trump’s lawyers.”
Probation also told Luthmann he was on “thin ice.” He was now “under investigation” for witness tampering. Probation officers presented him with the following document, hoping he would be spooked into signing.
Luthmann cried foul and doubled down. “I said I wasn’t going to sign that fucking paper.”
The former lawyer said he had a right to collect valuable monies owed to him and practice journalism, secured by the Bill of Rights. He didn’t care what Love, Hanks, or anyone else had to say. There were, after all, nothing but deadbeats in Luthmann’s mind.
Even after Luthmann would not sign, the Probation Department still took five months to “investigate.”
Luthmann’s Claims of Harm
The US Government changed its stance on August 8, 2023. US Probation reversed course and said Luthmann could freely engage in journalism, associate with others in furtherance of his profession, and use the courts to collect all debts owed to him without limitations.
Luthmann seeks reimbursement of the original legal fees of almost $87,000, plus nine percent statutory interest, from Love, Hanks, and her NYC Council campaign (a total exceeding $125,000). He also wants compensation for the substantial economic and professional harm they caused him.
The months that Love and Hanks’s lies caused Luthmann to sit idle carry a heavy price for the former bow-tied barrister turned muckraker. He’s asking for seven digits in punitive damages against the millionaire political power couple.
Hanks Was Complicit in Fake Facebook
Additionally, Luthmann says Hanks and Love orchestrated a coverup involving the creation of “fake” social media pages during Hanks’ 2017 NYC Council Primary election campaign against Debi Rose.
“Mr. Luthmann was also engaged by Ms. Hanks, Mr. Love, and the 2017 Hanks NYC Council Campaign to create a ‘FAKE FACEBOOK’ page about DEBI ROSE, Ms. Hanks’ opponent. Mr. Love promised Mr. Luthmann $25,000.00 in cash when they met in Mr. Love’s basement at 37 Tappan Court, Staten Island, NY 10304,” says the complaint.
In 2017, Hanks minimized her involvement. “Richard Luthmann was hired solely for the petitioning process and is not employed by this campaign,” Hanks campaign spokesperson Jennifer Blatus said.
Luthmann says he doesn’t need to point that out as a blatant lie because Hanks’ primary opponent already did.
“I have previously called for public officials and candidates to reject and repudiate Luthmann’s outrageous behavior. My primary election opponent has been conspicuously silent. There is no arm’s length relationship between Kamillah Hanks and Richard Luthmann: he is her personal attorney, campaign attorney, and campaign advisor,” Debi Rose said in a statement.
Rose continued, “I urge the special prosecutor to obtain campaign communications between Hanks and Luthmann to determine if Kamillah Hanks is complicit in criminal campaign activity. Kamillah Hanks should immediately repudiate Luthmann and return his monetary contributions to her campaign.”
Campaign Finance Fraud?
Interestingly, no financial references are made to the expenditures for Luthmann’s services in the 2017 Hanks CFB filings, save a $1,650 payment for “petitioning.” Hanks and Love knew they were skirting NYC Council campaign finance reporting requirements because Love admitted as much.
In the 2023 recorded conversation, Love admits that the former attorney performed work for Hanks and her campaign. Love also mentions embattled NYC Mayor Eric Adams, a Hanks ally embroiled in a serious campaign finance investigation and new allegations of sexual assault stemming back to the 1990s.
Luthmann’s filing contains allegations that Hanks not only knew about the Fake Facebook page in 2017, but she openly discussed the page with Luthmann and sent him pictures, including of Debi Rose, to post with the editorial command “Cut it.”
Hanks and Love were complicit in the creation, deployment, and continued management of the fake Facebook case, Luthmann boldly asserts.
NYC Campaign Finance Implications
While Love lied to avoid paying valid debts, Luthmann claims there was another important reason: to stay under the radar of the NYC Campaign Finance Board.
The CFB typically imposes fines where a campaign fails in its reporting obligations. These fines become treble damages when a campaign does not pay its employees or contractors for services rendered.
If Luthmann is correct, the $87,000.00 debt is the tip of the iceberg. Hanks’s campaign could owe NYC Taxpayers $261,000 for its violations, a crippling sum. And that does not include other unpaid debts Luthmann alleges the 2017 Hanks campaign owed consultants and workers and never paid. The final number could mushroom.
Hanks’ connected Democratic Party political consultant, Scott Levenson of Midtown Manhattan-based The Advance Group, is no stranger to CFB hijinx. In 2013, the NYC Campaign Finance Board previously fined Levenson $26,000 for “shenanigans” related to consulting work never reported on former NYC Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito’s campaign,
Similarly, the 2017 Hanks Campaign failed to fully disclose all the legal and political consulting work performed on its behalf. This is a serious campaign finance issue.
If Hanks gets “pinged” and fails to pay, she may become disqualified from NYC’s matching funds program in future elections. That would make her a political leper and easily vulnerable to what everyone already assumes will be the closest Staten Island has seen to a Democratic Party “jungle primary” the next time around.
The CFB set a precedent in 2013 when it disqualified NYC Mayoral Candidate John Liu from receiving matching funds because of “substantial evidence of noncompliance” with fund-raising rules they believed were “serious and pervasive.”
Luthmann “Brings It Big”
The New York Post reported on Luthmann’s March lawsuit. Disgraced ‘trial by combat’ lawyer sues NYC councilwoman over unpaid $86K bill.
In the Post’s story, Hanks did not respond to the allegations. Love called Luthmann’s allegations a “vulgar lie.”
Love told the Post, “Missing from his lawsuit is not a single piece of evidence other than the rantings of a mentally ill man.”
The New York Post did not seek comment from Luthmann, but we did.
“Kevin called me mentally ill. He told other people to tell me to ‘Bring It Big.’ He can go fuck himself. This case doesn’t settle. Not with him.”
This time, Luthmann brought the proof.
The current lawsuit includes an Affidavit of Merit from veteran political consultant Michael J. Cox, procured by Luthmann’s former lawyers.
Cox worked for Hanks’ campaign in 2017. His affidavit confirms Luthmann’s allegations and is damning to Hanks and Love both legally and politically.
The Michael Cox Affidavit
The Cox affidavit is damning to Hanks, Love, and the NYC Council member’s political campaign committee.
“For over forty years, it has not been my practice to volunteer information related to political campaigns. I will state the following facts, which I believe to be common knowledge. Also, I believe that the rule in New York State is that even lawyers are justified in breaking client confidence when it relates to issues of payment and non-payment. I had a handshake engagement with Kamillah Hanks, Kevin Barry Love, and their 2017 campaign for $14,000 to be a political consultant. I was never paid,” Cox’s affidavit says.
Cox Says Everyone, Especially Hanks, Knew About the Fake Facebook Page
Consultant Cox knew all about the 2017 Debi Rose Fake Facebook case. No one, including Luthmann’s special prosecutor Eric Nelson, ever questioned him about it.
“The fake Debi Rose Facebook page was the worst-kept secret of the 2017 campaign. Everyone, including Kamillah and Kevin, knew Luthmann was running the page. At a certain point, Kamillah was advised by Scott Levenson and others to get off of her personal Facebook page because the fake Debi Rose was becoming too controversial,” the affidavit says.
Cox says Luthmann told him he didn’t do the fake Facebook page for free. He expected Love and Hanks to pay him.
“When Luthmann would walk into the campaign office, people would shout, ‘Hey Baby,’ and everyone would smile. Luthmann’s fake Debi Rose Facebook posts would often start with the words “Hey Baby!” referring to the way in which Debi Rose greets people,” Cox’s sworn statement says.
Cox Details Love’s Deadbeat Tactics
Cox confirmed that Love is Hanks’ de facto agent. “Kevin and Kamillah act as one, and Kevin regularly acted and acts on Kamillah’s behalf and speaks and spoke for her.”
The affidavit details how Love tried to “strong-arm” Cox into accepting ten cents on the dollar.
“At the end of the 2017 campaign, Kevin and Kamillah said the campaign didn’t have the money to pay me the agreed-upon amount. I had a heart attack and emergency triple bypass surgery at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in the summer of 2017, after which time I was weak. Kevin had me take a ride with him to Brooklyn and insulted me by trying to settle the $14,000 debt for $1,250. When I told him it was unacceptable, Kevin raised the amount to $1,500. I was insulted. I would have gotten out of the car and taken public transportation home, but I was too weak, and Kevin knew it.”
At a 2017 dinner at Sparks Steak House in Manhattan, Scott Levenson told Cox not having a written contract was “foolish.”
“I guess I was naïve because I thought Kevin and Kamillah were my friends. Scott Levenson said Kevin and Kamillah were his friends too, but he got a contract and ‘$10K up-front’ in December 2016,” Cox’s papers say.
Levenson and his firm, The Advance Group, have sued many former political clients for non-payment and payment disputes, notably Janine Materna on Staten Island, who initially stiffed Levenson $40,000 after a failed 2009 Council race.
Materna withheld payment because Levenson didn’t send out the mailings he said he would. In 2017, neither did The Advance Group.
Hanks and Love Head to Paris, Avoid Paying Campaign Workers and Consultants
Cox’s affidavit raises serious campaign finance issues and non-payment of employees and contractors related to the Hanks 2017 campaign.
“To this day, I was never paid, and my engagement with Kamillah, Kevin, and their campaign was never reported to the New York City Campaign Finance Board...Not only did Kamillah and Kevin not pay me, but I was out of work for several months in the summer and fall of 2017. I saw Kevin and Kamillah vacationing in Paris, France, on Facebook. They had the money to go to Paris, but they didn’t have the money to pay their workers.”
Cox confirmed that Love is a millionaire NYC real estate investor.
“If Kevin and Kamillah were hard-up, I would have worked with them. They are not hard-up. Kevin and Kamillah are worth millions.”
The 2017 Hanks campaign stiffed several people. But none of them is named Love or Hanks.
“But I know for a fact that Kevin and Kamillah’s family members worked for the campaign, and every one of them was paid in full, some of them in cash,” Cox’s affidavit says.
Phil Marius Thrown Off the NYC Council Ballot at Hanks and Love’s Direction
The Cox affidavit confirms that Hanks engaged Luthmann to throw Phil Marius off the ballot. Cox helped Luthmann with the labor-intensive process.
“Kamillah, Kevin, Scott Levenson, Lok Yung, Priscilla Marco, Jason Reynard, Mr. Luthmann, and others were present when we had the conversation as to whether we had a shot at Debi Rose and whether we should try to get Phil Marius thrown off the ballot.”
Cox says that Love, Hanks, and eventually Levenson ultimately agreed that they wanted Luthmann and him to proceed in getting Marius thrown off the ballot. There was no shot to knock off Debi Rose. Eliminating Marius would allow Hanks to pull all of the anti-Debi Rose votes in the Democratic Party primary without splitting the votes between two candidates.
Marius submitted over 1,200 signatures to qualify for the primary ballot. The NYC Board of Elections required 450 valid signatures.
Cox says he and Luthmann “worked over two weeks, many twelve-hour days, and many long nights.”
Campaign emails corroborate Cox’s statements and Hanks, Love’s, and Levenson’s knowledge.
The NYC Board of Elections threw Marius off the ballot at an August 2017 hearing. Luthmann and Cox’s efforts knocked his official signature tally down into the 300s.
“Our efforts were so devastating to him, Phil Marius was unsuccessful in getting even one invalidated signature restored by the election commissioners.”
Luthmann and Cox’s Epic Ballot Takedown
Cox says Marius didn’t bother going to court because his petition was laden with fraud. The candidate did not know his own district, witnessing and submitting signatures of people from Queens, Connecticut, and Hackensack, New Jersey.
But worse, Cox and Luthmann uncovered that one of the other so-called witnesses on the Marius petition was actually in prison when the sworn and filed document claims he was witnessing signatures.
Former Councilman and NYC Mayoral Candidate Sal Albanese, one of Luthmann’s other political clients at the time, stopped in Luthmann’s office while they were working.
“Sal and I had an entire conversation. Sal was in disbelief that we believed we could get Phil Marius thrown off the ballot. I have known Sal for many years from Brooklyn politics,” Cox’s affidavit says.
Cox confirmed that with Kevin and Kamillah’s consent, Luthmann’s then-wife, Tammara Moore, was the legal objector to Marius’ designating petition.
If Marius’ designating petition was upheld, Luthmann preserved an election law battle in the New York State Supreme Court. Justice Philip G. Minardo, who sat on the Richmond County bench then, was slated to hear the case.
“Mr. Luthmann not only drafted and filed the complaint, but he also paid and consulted with private investigators, process servers, and a handwriting expert in order to set up the court battle were it to have been necessary,” the Cox affidavit says.
Luthmann’s Filing Establishes Substantial Unreported and Unpaid Work Performed for Hanks’ Campaign
Luthmann says he will call election law experts to establish the reasonableness and value of the service rendered. These witnesses include attorney Howard Graubard, Hanks’ current election lawyer, who will be a fact witness. Also, John Ciampoli, an expert in ballot access, represents the NYS Senate Republicans.
According to CFB records, the 2017 Hanks Campaign paid Luthmann $1,650.
Sources knowledgeable in New York election law say, and Cox’s affidavit confirms, that legally removing an opposing candidate from the primary election ballot is complicated and labor-intensive. For a NYC Council race, the process can take over 100 hours of legal work, which Luthmann claims. Legal fees and costs routinely exceed $50,000.
Luthmann, detailing the work performed for Hanks and her campaign, said, “The $1,650 didn’t even cover the gas and tolls back and forth to the Board of Elections, opponent candidates’ petition copies, buff card copies, fees for the handwriting expert, the process servers, and the private investigators, my legal appearance at the Board of Election, the filing of an election law case in New York State Supreme Court, and all the miscellaneous cash I doled out to feed all the people working on the line-by-line on the Phil Marius petition and the use of my office, even letting a campaign worker sleep on the couch, so he didn’t have to travel back and forth to Brooklyn during crunch time.”
The former bow-tied barrister’s billable rate in 2017 was $425 an hour. Hanks and Love decided to pay Luthmann $1.65 an hour. Or at least that’s what they reported in their campaign finance disclosures.
What’s Next?
Luthmann says he is set to have the defendants tagged with legal process and begin the process in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“I have been steeled with vigilance the last six years. In the cold confines of prison, these people were the last thing I thought about when I went to sleep and the first thing I thought about when I woke up. And on good nights, I would dream of their demise. For them, it’s little more than a week away - Winter is Coming.”
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Reader comment:
Be careful: NY city politics is corrupt and powerful criminals exploit dirty political connections.
Right makes might! I hope you get all of the monies your are owed soon!