This week, End Citizens United (ECU) filed a complaint with the Department of Justice (DOJ) against Mazi Pilip for failing to file a complete and accurate personal financial disclosure (PFD) report. The complaint alleges that Pilip failed to properly report investment accounts, spousal income, and an investment property as required by federal law. Click here to read the full complaint.
Key Sections of the Complaint:
1. Failure to Fully and Completely Disclose Unearned Income
- Under federal law, candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives must file a full and complete financial disclosure statement which includes unearned income for themselves and their spouse that exceeds $1,000.
- House Committee on Ethics guidance clarifies that brokerage accounts are investment vehicles that must be disclosed as unearned income, and the underlying assets in these accounts must also be disclosed.
- Pilip’s county PFDs covering the same period as her federal PFD indicate that both Pilip and her husband each held more than $5,000 of investments in an E-Trade Securities Brokerage Account. However, the E-Trade account and its underlying assets were not disclosed in Pilip’s federal PFD.
2. Failure to Fully and Completely Disclose Earned Income
- Federal law requires a candidate to disclose their spouse’s earned income totaling more than $1,000 from a single source.
- Pilip’s Nassau County financial disclosure statements indicate that Adalbert Pilip earned at least $2,500 from his medical practice in 2022 and 2023. Pilip did not disclose this in her federal PFD.
3. Failure to Report Investment Property
- The House Committee on Ethics requires that a candidate report any interest in land held for investment or the production of income. Investment property that is not a personal residence must be disclosed regardless of whether it generated any income during the reporting period.
- Pilip’s county PFDs indicate that she held an investment property worth more than $5,000 during the reporting period. However, Pilip failed to report this property on her federal PFD.
Emily Ngo
1/31/2024
Key Points:
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FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: The watchdog group that filed a complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice over inconsistencies in George Santos’ financial disclosures has done the same for the GOP pick to replace him, Mazi Pilip.
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End Citizens United alleges that Pilip failed to file a complete, accurate report to the Clerk of the House of Representatives, leaving questions about investment accounts, spousal income and an investment property.
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“Mazi Pilip has taken a page out of George Santos’ playbook and is engaging in shady bookkeeping practices to conceal her financial interests,” End Citizens United president Tiffany Muller said in a statement. “She’s not being upfront about her finances which raises a major red flag so close to the special election.”
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Pilip amended her personal finance disclosure statement, the New York Times reported. But the letter from ECU to the DOJ states the “financial disclosure still appears to be missing critical information that was previously filed in nonpublic financial disclosure reports with the Nassau County, New York Board of Ethics.”
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