{"id":100277,"date":"2020-10-29T02:17:59","date_gmt":"2020-10-28T23:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/bill-de-blasio-is-trying-to-kill-mets-sale-to-steve-cohen\/"},"modified":"2020-10-29T02:17:59","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T23:17:59","slug":"bill-de-blasio-is-trying-to-kill-mets-sale-to-steve-cohen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/bill-de-blasio-is-trying-to-kill-mets-sale-to-steve-cohen\/","title":{"rendered":"#Bill de Blasio is trying to kill Mets sale to Steve Cohen"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Bill de Blasio is trying to kill Mets sale to Steve Cohen<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Bill de Blasio has privately told Major League Baseball that he will do everything he can to stop Steve Cohen from buying the Mets.<\/p>\n

The Post has learned that Hizzoner called MLB commissioner Rob Manfred earlier this month and told him outright that he opposed the idea of a hedge-fund billionaire buying a local team and would be using his oversight power of the city\u2019s control of the Citi Field lease to prevent the sale from being finalized.<\/p>\n

A source inside City Hall confirmed to The Post that de Blasio did call Manfred, but said the mayor\u2019s message to the MLB commish was \u201cvery close to what the mayor has been saying publicly.\u201d<\/p>\n

City Hall has maintained that de Blasio and his team are merely doing \u201cdue diligence\u201d on Cohen\u2019s purchase of the Mets, something they are entitled to do thanks to a clause in the Citi Field lease that allows the mayor to weigh in because the ballpark sits on land that is technically a city park.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mayor did call Commissioner Manfred, but the rest of this isn\u2019t true,\u201d City Hall spokesman Bill Neidhardt tweeted in response to The Post story. \u201cThe NYC Law Dept is doing their due diligence of examining a new lease on incredibly valuable city-owned land. That\u2019s what the call was about.\u201d<\/p>\n

What the mayor has said publicly and what he has told people inside city government app<\/a>ear to be at odds, and multiple sources have told The Post the mayor has been pushing the city\u2019s lawyers to find a way to halt Cohen\u2019s sale by using a clause buried in the Citi Field lease.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018due diligence\u2019 line is bulls\u2013t,\u201d a source familiar with City Hall told The Post. \u201cHe\u2019s told [Major League] Baseball he doesn\u2019t want Cohen and he\u2019s told his Law Department to find a way to stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bill
Bill de Blasio remains a stumbling block in the sale of the Mets to Steve Cohen.<\/span>NY Post composite<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That language that de Blasio is most interested in precludes \u201c[a]ny Person that has been convicted in a criminal proceeding for a felony or any crime involving moral turpitude or that is an organized crime figure\u201d from leasing Citi Field.<\/p>\n

The Post has also obtained new information from a group of well-connected opponents of the Mets\u2019 sale to Cohen, which is expected to be approved by MLB owners on Friday.<\/p>\n

They argue the Citi Field lease gives Hizzoner \u2014 a Red Sox fan \u2014 a clear right to block the deal, pointing to a provision in the lease that prevents a transaction with a \u201cprohibited person.\u201d A prohibited person includes not just an individual who was convicted of a felony, but anyone \u201cwho controls any person or entity that has been convicted of a felony.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cohen\u2019s former hedge fund, S.A.C. Capital Advisors, pleaded guilty to insider trading charges in 2013 and paid $1.8 billion in fines. Eight traders from S.A.C. were either convicted or pleaded guilty to similar charges, but Cohen, 64, reached a civil deal with SEC that reprimanded him for failing to oversee his people properly and agreed to a two-year ban from managing outside money.<\/p>\n

That outcome does not make Cohen guilty of any actual crime, but the new interpretation of \u201cprohibited person\u201d could give de Blasio an avenue to block the lease.<\/p>\n

The City Hall source confirmed the Law Department is \u201clooking into provisions of the lease that could affect\u201d the sale of the Mets.<\/p>\n

But de Blasio might be stymied by reality.<\/p>\n

A source close to the Mets sale told The Post that the team hired two law firms to look into this matter before the deal closed. After close study, both firms concluded the city would have no standing to oppose Cohen\u2019s purchase and felt more than comfortable moving ahead with the sale.<\/p>\n

\u201cMultiple law firms investigated this already,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n

But sources also told The Post the mayor is privately taking political fire from both sides of the Mets issue.<\/p>\n

Politicians on one side are warning de Blasio that he is overstepping his role to get involved in the private $2.4 billion sale of a local sports franchise because of his continued campaign to \u201cstick it to billionaires.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMets fans have been tortured for too long to have this glimmer of hope snatched at the last moment,\u201d City Councilman Keith Powers said. \u201cThe Law Department should be reviewing this under the rules. If this is a political excursion to make sure one person can\u2019t buy a team, that feels out of bounds to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other side of the debate is the aforementioned well-connected opposition group, which appears to be using language eerily familiar to that of the revolt movement that scuttled the city\u2019s development deal with Amazon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are disturbing new revelations about a once-in-a-generation sale of City-owned land,\u201d one person inside the opposition group told The Post. \u201cIt is urgently important that any deal includes a generous, comprehensive community benefits package that actually serves the people of the surrounding neighborhood and all of New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n

A key player opposing Cohen is State Senator Jessica Ramos, who was also a vocal player in the Amazon fiasco. Sources confirm that Ramos has been in contact with City Hall about the Mets sale.<\/p>\n

Ramos also penned an op-ed in July endorsing the sale of the Mets to the group led by Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez.<\/p>\n

A source close to the so-called \u201cJ-Rod group\u201d told The Post they think de Blasio wants to derail the Cohen deal and also believe he can. They see a glimmer of hope in the mayor\u2019s machinations over Citi Field.<\/p>\n

That glimmer, however, seems very dim.<\/p>\n

\u201cDe Blasio can make this ugly and he can even try to stop it,\u201d said one lawyer with knowledge of the situation. \u201cBut he has no real standing, and Cohen will sue him. And Cohen will win.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Bill de Blasio is trying to kill Mets sale to Steve Cohen” Bill de Blasio has privately told Major League Baseball that he will do everything he can to stop Steve Cohen from buying the Mets. The Post has learned that Hizzoner called MLB commissioner Rob Manfred earlier this month and told him outright that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":100278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/10\/mets-cohen-de-blasio-01.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[77428,5042,3988,8326,37192,71541],"class_list":["post-100277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-10-28-20","tag-bill-de-blasio","tag-citi-field","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-mets","tag-steve-cohen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}