Bill de Blasio misused NYPD security detail in presidential campaign,

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has not paid back nearly $320,000 in public money used to fund the security detail that traveled with him during his aborted presidential campaign, a new report said Thursday.

The city investigators looking into the use of de Blasio’s security detail also concluded that the officer in charge of the mayor’s security unit “actively obstructed and sought to thwart” their probe.

The 47-page report from the New York City Department of Investigations came more than two years after the investigators launched a probe into allegations that de Blasio’s security detail had been misused for personal or political benefit. The probe looked at the use of security resources by de Blasio’s children and staff members, as well as whether the city had been stuck with the bill for de Blasio’s use of the security detail during his presidential bid.

The report arrived as de Blasio, who will step down as mayor when his final term ends this year, is reportedly planning a run for governor.

“There was a culture that treated the detail as if they were staffers” in the mayor’s office, Department of Investigations Commissioner Margaret Garnett told reporters later Thursday morning.

The detail, known as the executive protection unit or EPU, comprises officers from the New York Police Department’s intelligence bureau.

The report concluded that the EPU was misused when its members helped the mayor’s daughter, Chiara de Blasio, lift a futon into and out of an NYPD sprinter van during her move to Gracie Mansion from her apartment.

The probe was “unable to determine whether NYPD resources assisted in the move at Mayor de Blasio’s direct instruction,” but it said that the use of officers’ help in moving furniture was nevertheless “a misuse of NYPD resources for a personal benefit, whether it was requested or merely accepted.”

On numerous instances, the detail also drove de Blasio’s son, Dante de Blasio, to and from Yale University in Connecticut, and it was “common practice” for security members to drive him around New York City without the mayor or first lady present, according to the report.

Both of de Blasio’s kids declined to be assigned a security detail as adults, and there are no records showing Dante de Blasio should be a security detail protectee, the report said. “In practice, Dante’s use of NYPD resources was determined by his personal preferences and the availability of personnel, rather than any risk assessment,” the report concluded.

The investigation also concluded that the NYPD paid about $319,794 for the security detail to travel with de Blasio outside of New York City during his presidential run in 2019, which began in May that year and folded about four months later.

“To date, the City has not been reimbursed for these expenditures,” the report said.

To determine that figure, investigators had to cross-reference records from the campaign and NYPD records from the same time period “sort of piece by piece,” Garnett said.

In a fiery…