In the special election to replace fraudster George Santos, the saga over Mazi Pilip’s personal financial disclosures continues.
In case you missed it: Pilip’s original financial disclosure raised numerous questions, including that her and husband owed the IRS up to $250,000 as of April of 2023.
Days later, Mazi Pilip resubmitted her disclosure with substantial differences that changed details of her salary, assets, and liabilities – including updating that she didn’t receive a salary from her husband’s medical practice in 2023 just days after it was reported she was subpoenaed in a lawsuit against the practice.
Now, a new article in Newsday builds on recent reporting from The New York Times and doubles down on substantial discrepancies found between Pilip’s federal and local financial disclosures, including investments around her husband’s multiple medical start-ups.
DCCC Spokesperson Ellie Dougherty:
“Mazi Pilip’s shifting story about her personal finances continues to raise questions. As Pilip faces heightened scrutiny over her disclosures, it becomes clearer each day that families across Nassau County and Queens can’t afford Santos 2.0.”
Pilip, in the county filing last May, detailed investments with her husband such as a co-op and medical startups. Her campaign said disclosure of the holdings was not required on the federal report Pilip submitted recently to the Clerk of the House of Representatives, disputing the opinion of an ethics watchdog.
On both the county and federal disclosures, Pilip also reported income earned from her husband Dr. Adalbert Pilip’s medical practice, New York Comprehensive Medical Care, despite her campaign having said she stopped working there in 2021.
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Pilip initially had reported to the House clerk earnings of $50,000 in each of the last two years from the medical practice, where she said she worked as operations director. Pilip spokesman Brian Devine has said the House disclosure was a draft filed in error. In a revised version filed days later, Pilip reported no income from the practice in 2023 and $13,472 in 2022.
The federal disclosures said Pilip and her husband owed the Internal Revenue Service between $100,000 and $250,000 in income tax as of April 2023. The campaign has said the debt has been paid.
The May 2023 county disclosure also listed a debt to the IRS, but didn’t specify an amount or date.
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In the Nassau disclosure, Pilip said her husband was an owner or partner in three businesses besides his main medical companies listed on the federal forms. The ventures include Infuse Chi, described in a 2022 news release as “an all-natural electrolyte hydration” powder.
Devine said in a statement the businesses “have not taken off and have no value. As such, it is not appropriate for these entities to be reported in [the federal] disclosure.”
The county form also listed Mazi and Adalbert Pilip as owners of a co-op in addition to their home in Great Neck. Devine said Mazi Pilip’s in laws reside at the co-op, it yielded no rental income and that lawyers with knowledge of federal reporting guidelines advised the campaign that it was not subject to disclosure.
The property was listed on the county form under the investments category, and Kedric Payne, senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit watchdog in Washington, D.C., said “federal financial disclosure laws require disclosure of investment property even if it did not generate rental income.”
