Outspoken socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani usually has a lot to say – but not when it comes to his former campaign spokesman who served three months in jail for soliciting sex from a minor.
Matthew Thomas was busted in 2014 after soliciting a 16-year-old boy for a gay-sex threesome with Daniel Simmons, a former deputy attorney general in Delaware. Thomas was then known as Matthew Coogan but legally changed his name in 2017, court records show.
Mamdani, a Queens state assemblyman, hired Thomas — a one-time official for the borough’s branch of the Democrat Socialists of America who has also been an outspoken critic of Israel — as comms director for his successful 2020 Assembly race.
“I didn’t know about this before I hired him,” Mamdani told The Post in 2023 when it first revealed Thomas’ seedy past.
Thomas was charged with two counts of sexual solicitation of a child in the case. Substack matthew thomasAndrew Epstein, Mamdani’s current campaign spokesman, said Thomas, 34, hasn’t worked for Mamdani since the 2020 campaign and declined to comment further.
“Mamdani is a radical socialist who would be an absolute disaster for our city — his policies belong in a Marxist fantasy, not on the streets of New York,” said Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens). “The fact that he hired someone convicted of soliciting minors without even checking his background shows he’s not just unfit to lead — he’s downright dangerous and lazy.”
Mamdani said he wasn’t aware of the criminal case before hiring Thomas. James MesserschmidtCouncilwoman Tiffany Cabán, another Queens socialist, also employed Thomas as a researcher for her unsuccessful 2019 race for Queens district attorney.
Both she and Mamdani paid Thomas more than $22,000 for his services.
Thomas was charged with two counts of sexual solicitation of a child and conspiracy but managed to escape rape charges because Delaware law permits sex with 16-year-olds if you are under the age of 30, Delaware Online reported.
Thomas, who now lives in Delaware, could not be reached for comment.
Simmons was a top deputy to Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, ex-President Joe Biden’s son and one-time political heir who died of brain cancer in 2015.






