‘Post’-er girl
Brooklyn’s “first lady” loves publicity as much as her debtor half.
Jamie Markowitz was all smiles yesterday, laughing at the sight of her mug on the front page of yesterday’s Post — even though her borough-president husband, Marty, was being slapped with a $20,000 ethics fine for letting her tag along on freebie foreign trips.
Perhaps all the attention made her feel a bit more like Michelle Obama — to whom Markowitz tried to compare her.
But she may stop smiling when she hears this: Although Markowitz was able to use campaign cash to cover thousands of dollars in legal fees to fight the ethics charges, he is paying the $20,000 fine out of his own pocket, a spokesman said.
The beep hates to pick up a tab, another politico joked.
“Marty is cheap. Marty is always claiming poverty,” he said.
Though he failed to convince the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board that his wife’s role as a public official’s spouse is akin to Michelle Obama’s, Markowitz insists Jamie has played a great part in promoting Brooklyn.
“On June 22, Mrs. Markowitz delivered a well-received speech at the Brooklyn Women of Distinction dinner at Coney Island,” spokesman Mark Zustovich said. “Mrs. Markowitz also represented the borough president and actually spoke for him during the week he was without a voice due to his throat procedure [in October].”
His wife went along on 2009 trips to Holland and Turkey paid for by those governments, which included tours of Amsterdam’s canals and its infamous red-light district. Jamie was not the only political wife on the trip — one of the main delegates was Michelle Paterson, then the state’s first lady. Then-Gov. David Paterson was not on the trip.
Campaign records show that Markowitz paid nearly $125,000 to lawyers who represented him in the conflicts case, a sum Zustovich said was “in part, related to this” conflict-of-interest case.
His fellow borough presidents, none of whom say they’ve taken paid foreign trips in the past year, described a highly limited role for their spouses.
Queens Borough President Helen Marshall asks her husband, Donald, to do little more than show up at her swearing in and the annual State of the Borough speech, her spokesman Dan Andrews said.
When he does accompany her, “he drives her home, saving us money by not using an official office car,” Andrews said.
Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz’s wife, Hilda, attends the big speeches and did once co-host a women’s history event, his spokesman said.
“Otherwise, she has a full-time job with the Port Authority and is studying to become an airplane pilot,” he said.
