Leader’s son jailed for child porn
BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
Jacob Schwartz, once a rising star in
the New York Democratic Party, was
sentenced Wednesday to one to three
years in prison for possessing child pornography.
The judge’s sentence was part of a
plea deal reached after Schwartz, 31,
admitted guilt on May 28 to one count
of promoting sexual performance by a
child.
Schwartz will also be on the mandatory
sex-offender registry for a minimum
of 20 years.
He had additionally been charged
with one count of possessing a sexual
performance by a child under age 16,
but he did not admit guilt to that as part
of the plea deal.
Jacob Schwartz was arrested in May
2017, in what his father, Greenwich Village
District Leader Arthur Schwartz,
called a “personal tragedy” for him.
According to police, the younger
Schwartz’s laptop computer contained
“over 3,000 images and 89 videos depicting
young nude females between the
approximate ages of 6 months and 16
years old, engaging in sexual conduct…
on an adult male.”
Jacob Schwartz is an alumni of the Village
Community School. At the time of
his arrest, he was living in Murray Hill,
and employed as a computer programmer
analyst with the city’s Department
of Design and Construction, where he
worked for Build It Back, a Superstorm
Sandy recovery and rebuilding-assistance
Jacob Schwartz pled guilty to a
child-porn charge in May and will
serve one to three years in prison.
program.
FACEBOOK
He was also the president of the
Manhattan Young Democrats and the
Downstate region vice president of the
New York State Young Democrats.
Arthur Schwartz had previously told
this paper that he did not expect his son
would wind up going to jail.
“I had hoped he wasn’t going to serve
time,” he said Friday, noting the “modern
trend” is against prison in such cases.
But, he added, that Jacob probably
was sentenced, partly, “because of who I
am and who he was.” He said Jacob will
serve his time in a state prison.
Schwartz was the New York counsel
for Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential
campaign, and is a prominent New York
City union attorney.
Arthur Schwartz said the New York
Post, in its coverage, initially made a
point of stressing that Jacob was a “de
Blasio staffer,” when in fact he was
merely one employee within the administration.
He blamed the Post’s “conservative”
politics for its ongoing coverage of the
story, saying that it would not merit
mention otherwise. The tabloid likes to
use the term “Democratic Party insider”
for him and his son, he noted.
“The nature of what Jacob was charged
with, in the end, most cases wouldn’t be
covered,” he said of the major media.
The Post also reported that Arthur
Schwartz shoved one of its photographers
at Friday’s sentencing and
screamed at him, “Get the f— away
from me!”
Schwartz said it was Steve Hirsch,
and that the photographer was blocking
his way when Schwartz and his family
members — including Jacob’s mother
and others — were trying to exit an elevator
and get to the sentencing.
“The elevator door opened and he
was about to take pictures of my family
who were there, and I pushed him out of
the way,” Schwartz said.
Schwartz claimed that Hirsch also
made a provocative remark to him.
“He was harassing me,” he charged.
Schwartz said that on his way back
out, he was escorted to the stairs by a
court offi cer who kept the shutterbug
from getting a good shot.
Hirsch is a longtime East Villager who
has covered the crusty punks in Tompkins
Square Park on his “Crustypunks”
blog, among others.
“No comment,” Hirsch responded
by e-mail when asked to respond to
Schwarz’s accusations.
“Nobody else besides the Post covered
any of this stuff — except The Villager,”
Schwartz said.
“I don’t think it’s an important story,”
he added. “I think 14th St. is more important.”
He was referring to his lawsuit on
behalf of Village and Chelsea block associations
against the city’s efforts to
ram through a “busway” plan for 14th
St. that would ban cars from the major
crosstown street daily from 6 a.m. to 10
p.m.
Although they represent the same district,
Assemblymember Deborah Glick
and Schwartz are bitter political foes.
Two years ago, when the story broke of
Jacob Schwartz’s arrest, Glick told this
paper that the focus should be on the
victims.
“It’s a terrible circumstance for the
Schwartz family,” Glick said at that
time, “although I reserve my compassion
for the obvious victims, who are all
these young girls who have been sold or
traffi cked and whose images have been
proliferated around the Web. Those are
the real victims and that is the really
horrible part of this.”
Glick did not immediately respond to
a request for comment for this story.
Activists: Save Village from ‘tech spread’
BY ALEJANDRA
O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
The Village area’s leading preservation
group is calling on local
politicians to make good on
what it says were promises to protect
the East Village from becoming a “Silicon
Alley.”
On June 28, Village Preservation
sent a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio and
Councilmember Carlina Rivera, outlining
a list of protections it says were
promised a year ago when upzoning for
the planned Tech Hub, at 124 E. 14th
St., was approved by the City Planning
Commission. The preservationists argue
that since no steps have been taken
to fulfi ll those alleged pledges, the surrounding
streets are slowly morphing
into an extension of “Midtown South.”
During her 2017 City Council campaign,
Rivera expressed support for the
Tech Hub provided that the city enact
some zoning measures to protect the
surrounding area from commercial and
residential development. But when the
City Council’s Zoning Subcommittee
and Land Use Committee both voted to
approve the proposed upzoning for the
site last year, Rivera voted for the required
rezoning for the project without
the protections.
According to the preservation group’s
letter, another protective measure that
was promised but has yet to be started
was a campaign to teach nearby residents
in rent-stabilized buildings about
their rights and how to recognize signs
of tenant harassment.
In the meantime, demolition of the
former P.C. Richard & Son store and
construction of the Tech Hub on the
site has begun and the “effects of the
upzoning have already been felt,” the
letter reads.
Those “effects” include the destruction
of the former St. Denis Hotel, at
11th St. and Broadway, and the three
historic low-scale buildings at the
northeast corner of Third Ave. and St.
Mark’s Place to make way for a “boutique
offi ce building.”
Another broken promise claimed in
the letter, this time by the Tech Hub’s
developer, RAL Development Services,
has hurt the neighborhood in a different
way.
“The developer has encroached upon
the sidewalk and two or three lanes
of eastbound traffi c, forcing pedestrians
waiting for the bus to stand in the
street,” the letter states. As a result,
buses have to use one open lane to pick
up and drop off passengers, during
which all eastbound traffi c is blocked
on 14th St.
“It is deeply disturbing to see that a
full year after the approval, while the
developer has moved full-steam ahead
with their project, there has been no
movement whatsoever on any of these
incredibly modest protections which
were promised,” Andrew Berman, director
of Village Preservation, wrote
in the June 28 letter to de Blasio and
Rivera.
Rivera spokesperson Jeremy Unger
said the councilmember was proud that
work is moving forward on the tech
training center, which Rivera believes
will help bring low-income residents
and people of color from the Lower
East Side into the tech world. Unger
pushed back against claims that no
measures related to preservation and
tenant protection in the area around
the Tech Hub have taken place. He cited
the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s
recent designation of seven
historic buildings along the Broadway
corridor as individual landmarks;
“Know Your Rights” tenant resource
fairs with the Department of Housing
Preservation and Development that are
set to start this month; the City Council
allocating funds to protect the historic
Merchant’s House; and continued
meetings with L.P.C. on the possibility
of further landmarking in the area.
“Councilwoman Rivera is continuing
discussions with the administration on
additional protective zoning measures,”
Unger assured.
“Our offi ce will work hand in hand
with the project’s community advisory
board to ensure that staging and safety
measures are following Metropolitan
Transportation Authority, Department
of Transportation and Department of
Buildings protocols, in light of the most
current 14th St. transit projects.”
8 July 18, 2019 TVG Schneps Media