Manhattan Councilman Christopher Marte was caught on video earlier this month removing a palm-sized card from a Lower East Side apartment complex — and a resident as well as a political consultant believe the piece of paper Marte picked up was a campaign pamphlet advertising one of his primary challengers.
The Ring camera video, provided to the Daily News by a resident of the 265-275 Cherry St. complex, is from the evening of May 7.
It shows Marte walking in a hallway in the building holding a stack of his campaign mailers in one hand before kneeling down and using his other hand to pick up a card left by the front door of an apartment.
He can then be seen stuffing that card into a bag slung over his shoulder before continuing into a stairwell.
Christian Gil, the resident whose Ring camera captured Marte in front of her neighbor’s door, told The News the card he picked up was likely a pamphlet for Elizabeth Lewinsohn, one of the candidates challenging him in the June 24 Democratic primary for his Council seat.
Gil said she saw the Lewinsohn pamphlet at her neighbor’s door just a couple hours before Marte showed up. She also said she reviewed the relevant two hours of footage before Marte showed up and told The News no one else appeared in that span.
After reviewing the footage, political consultant and Lewinsohn campaign manager David Quesada said he also believed the card Marte removed was a Lewinsohn mailer headed with the phrase “Leadership That Gets Result.”
Quesada said he recognized the font on the card displayed in the video as being the same printed on the campaign’s mailers. Lewinsohn’s campaign had distributed those mailers in that building earlier in the day on May 7.
“If he’s going around doing shady s–t like this, he does not have my support,” said Gil, who voted for Marte during his first Council campaign in 2021.
The News tried multiple times this month to reach Marte and his campaign for comment, but they didn’t respond to calls and texts.
Quesada called Marte’s actions “disheartening.”
“But it’s not surprising,” he added. “A growing number of his former endorsers, such as the teachers’ union, are now supporting Lizzie’s surging campaign. We all cope differently.”
Marte’s facing several other challengers besides Lewinsohn in June’s primary, including Jess Coleman, a Manhattan attorney and community board member. Marte’s district includes Chinatown and parts of the Lower East Side.
During his time as a Council member, Marte has faced some pushback internally for opposing affordable housing construction, including by aligning himself with a group of celebrities seeking to block the long-delayed redevelopment of Manhattan’s Elizabeth St. Garden.
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