A super PAC backing Zohran Mamdani allegedly offered a top Hispanic business leader a job as an NYC commissioner and a spot on the transition team — if he could raise up to $1 million in three days prior to the mayoral election, sources told The Post.
Frank Garcia, chairman of the New York State Coalition of Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, claimed he got the stunning “pay-to-play offer” from Irfan Verjee on Oct. 17 — three weeks before the election Mamdani won decisively.
Verjee, the CEO for the renewable energy firm Shomax Energy, sits on the business advisory council for OneNYC, a political action committee that raised $508,100 to buy ads backing the socialist pol’s mayoral bid.
Garcia and a third person at the meeting — who asked to remain anonymous — said Garcia shot down Verjee’s request three separate times over coffee at 5 Acres Restaurant in Rockefeller Center.
“I yelled out, ‘Absolutely not! I am not going to ‘pay to play!’” Garcia, 56, recalled during an interview Friday.
“We were talking over each other. The Puerto Rican in me got excited because I’m not going to go to jail for anybody.”
Garcia claimed he was tapped for the meeting because of his success bringing down food costs for minority-owned supermarkets and bodegas through a “buying group” he created that purchases in bulk — and his concerns over Mamdani’s “Soviet-style” plan to bring city-owned-and-operated grocery stores to the Big Apple.
Verjee allegedly at first asked Garcia if he was interested in being the city’s next commissioner of small business services, but Garcia said he didn’t want the $227,786-a-year job or any other job in a future Mamdani administration.
Instead, Garcia said he’d prefer being involved in picking the next commissioner as part of Mamdani’s transition team and helping revise policies for bodegas and supermarkets to be certified as “minority-owned businesses” to qualify for benefits that come with it.
Verjee then “asked me if I’d be interested in chairing the transition team’s Committee [on Small Businesses and Minority- and Women-owned Business Enterprises], and I said if it’s going to help me help small businesses I am willing to do it,” Garcia exclusively told The Post.
Garcia was initially “led to believe” by Verjee that he’d be part of the committee if he endorsed Mamdani – which the business leader said he planned to do anyway.
Toward the end of the sitdown, Verjee asked “how much money” Garcia could raise, Garcia claimed.
Garcia said he reminded Verjee that it is illegal for nonprofits like his chamber group to fundraise for political campaigns — and added he is the process of stepping down as chairman to run a proposed super PAC that will raise cash to boost minority businesses.
The future PAC could potentially raise $500,000 to a $1 million in a month, he told Verjee.
Verjee allegedly insisted he needed the money within three days in exchange “for a seat at the table” to help decide future policy in a Mamdani administration, according to Garcia and the witness.
Verjee didn’t vocalize the sum, the two recalled, but given the context of the conversation they understood his demand to mean $500,000 to $1 million in three days.
“I asked him three times to clarify because I couldn’t believe it,” said Garcia. “I was in shock. I’ve never had anyone working with a campaign approach me that way.”
Hours after the meeting, Verjee sent the third attendee, a business leader representing the Asian community, a text asking if she could help broker peace with Garcia, adding it “will benefit all of us” if Mamdani becomes mayor.
“I genuinely need your help as I don’t want to deal with a street hustler,” added Verjee, according to the text viewed by The Post.
Garcia was so enraged over the slur that he wrote a Nov. 13 letter to Mamdani outlining his “shock” over it — and what he called the “pay-to-play offer” Verjee made.
“This statement is not only deeply offensive to me personally but also to the thousands of Hispanic and minority entrepreneurs I represent,” wrote Garcia.
He also told Mamdani the incident “raises serious concerns about the sincerity of your administration’s commitment to inclusion and fairness” and demanded a private meeting within two weeks with the future mayor.
Garcia decided to go public with his allegations after Mamdani failed to respond.
Campaign finance laws bar a candidate’s campaign from coordinating with super PACs or other outside “independent expenditure” groups supporting that candidate.
However, leaders of such fundraising machines can be part of transition teams if their favored candidate wins.
OneNYC’s head honcho Yasser Salem was among the 400-plus, far-left Mamdani supporters appointed Monday to the mayor-elect’s 17 “transition committees.” Salem, a partner for the private investment group Hira Ventures, sits on the powerful Committee on Economic Development and Workforce Development.
Verjee was not appointed to any of the transition committees. He also was never affiliated with Mamdani’s campaign — just the super PAC.
Verjee and Salem did not return messages.
Monica Klein, a spokesperson for Mamdani’s transition team, said it “is not affiliated with or represented by anyone named Irfan Verjee — and any suggestion otherwise is completely false.”
“Anyone making such a claim stands in direct opposition to our commitment to transparency and ending corruption in government,” Klein said.
OneNYC wasn’t the only super PAC that supported Mamdani’s mayoral run.
New Yorkers for Lower Costs raised more than $3 million, predominately from deep-pocketed, out-of-state donors, records show.
