Frank Carone — the chief lawyer for the Brooklyn Democratic Party and legal adviser to landlords Jay and Stuart Podolsky — once worked for the mortgage firm that later gave Mayor de Blasio mortgages on his two Park Slope homes.
A generous donor to Mayor de Blasio and other high-ranking elected officials, Carone is one of the architects behind the controversial real estate deal that netted the Podolsky brothers $173 million from the city in April.
Jay and Stuart’s older brother, Abraham Podolsky, is the founder and treasurer of the mortgage firm from which de Blasio secured his mortgages in 2012 and 2014.
Carone worked at Wall Street Mortgage until 2008, according to his and the Podolsky’s spokesman George Arzt. His brother Anthony Carone, also a lawyer, appears to have notarized documents in connection with at least one of the mortgages, city Finance Department records show.
Aside from employing Carone, Wall Street Mortgage Bankers, which also does business under the name Power Express Mortgage Bankers, employed Brooklyn Democratic leader Frank Seddio as a vice president.
Arzt declined to detail when Seddio worked for the mortgage firm. He said Frank Carone didn’t know anything about de Blasio’s mortgages.
Carone has donated generously to the mayor and others over the years. Aside from the $21,500 he and his family have donated to de Blasio, campaign finance records show the Brooklyn lawyer has made political contributions to Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams to the tune of $6,600 since 2006, Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez, who has gotten $6,965 since 2017, state Attorney General Letitia James who received $7,500 since 2017. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams was given $1,000 in 2019 and city Comptroller Scott Stringer has gotten $2,500 from Carone since 2017.
Stringer has been investigating the widely divergent appraisals used to reach the $173 million deal. He declined to comment.
James, Gonzalez and Williams each has the power to probe the deal and the web of connections surrounding it. None have said that they are investigating the matter. All three declined to comment.
