Vito Lopez is still touching people from beyond the grave.
The late Brooklyn Assemblyman committed many sins during his long tenure — and now that he’s dead, his political heirs are making amends by donating $250,000 to his local church from his leftover campaign funds, according to new financial disclosures.
“For us, it’s been a gift from heaven,” said Ramon Castillo manager of Williamsburg’s Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii. “If not for this gift, it could be this parish closes. It’s a good deed and we will use it wisely and prudently.”
Lopez died in late 2015 after resigning from the legislature in disgrace over complaints that he groped his interns.
He was censured and fined before he died, but his war chest still had plenty of cash.
In addition to splashing cash on the church in May, the Hatzolah volunteer ambulance service received $150,000 and three animal rescue groups got $80,000 from the departed lawmaker’s account.
The account still has $71,283.
The gifts are the result of the nutty system that allows candidates to keep their campaign funds after their careers — and even their lives — have ended.
Last year, the legislature passed a law requiring all dead candidates’ committees to dissolve their accounts in two years, with a deadline of July 2018 for those who were already deceased with the bill passed — which may explain Lopez’s sudden burst of generosity.
Castillo likes to think the bequest was a result of the disgraced Kings County Democratic party boss trying to make amends.
“Near the end, most people think about death and the afterlife and they repent and ask for forgiveness from God,” the church manager said.
But critics say such posthumous gifts are less divine intervention and more the unholy alliance of bad regulations and bad-faith actions.
“When they know they’re not running, they should wrap them up within months of ending their political careers,” said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group, a government watchdog.
Lopez’s campaign is hardly the only taking advantage of the system.
Records show former Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau, 98, who left office in 2005, last year spent $2,547 to make a mortgage payment to the sister of a deceased employee.
State law allows some personal expenditures, but mortgage payments aren’t listed among them.
“That’s ridiculous,” Horner said. “It doesn’t make any sense, unless, maybe, there’s some sort of crazy way you campaign out of somebody’s house.
Neither Morgenthau nor his treasurer returned calls for comment. The Board of Elections filing says the Oct. 8 check paid Citi Mortgage for a “loan in arrears.”
Sen. Thomas Libous, an upstate Republican who died of cancer last year after being convicted for lying to the FBI about whether he had used his influence to get his son a job, managed to pay $21,295 in legal fees posthumously and has $184.53 remaining in his account.
Sen. Thomas Morahan, who died eight years ago, still has $21,214 in his account, records show — although his treasurer said the true balance is less and there have been glitches in the system while he’s tried to close the account.
“The family has not made a decision on how to pay down that balance,” said treasurer James Hartwick.
Former Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden, 92, has $52,462 in his account, even though he hasn’t been in office in 16 years. He spent $5,458 on donations this year.
There are 16,113 active political committees statewide — but it’s unclear how many belong to people whose careers or lives are over.
“It’s another example of a system that cries out for change,” Horner said.