Rep. Nick LaLota adds new detail in House disclosure filing

WASHINGTON — Rep. Nick LaLota on Sunday submitted a more detailed financial disclosure report for 2022 after an advocacy group filed a formal complaint in June that he omitted required information in his 2021 filing.

In his new filing, LaLota (R-Amityville) reported a 2019 home mortgage of $500,000 to $1 million that he did not include last year, for example. And he clarified that his firm called 495 Consulting Group LLC — a subject of the complaint — made no income last year.

LaLota and Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport) submitted their reports to the House Office of the Clerk Sunday after getting an extension from the original May 15 deadline. The House clerk’s office posted those reports on its website Monday.

But a search of the clerk’s website did not find a financial disclosure report Monday for Rep. George Santos (R-Nassau-Queens), who also had obtained a filing extension to Aug. 13. Santos’ spokesperson and lawyer did not respond to questions Monday about whether Santos had filed.

Santos’s disclosure report could be under review by the clerk or House Ethics Committee if it was filed. Santos also could have chosen not to file, experts said, because a federal indictment of him contains two counts of making false statements on his 2020 and 2022 disclosures.

The Ethics in Government Act requires members of Congress and those running for House or Senate to file reports every year to inform voters of their finances and deter conflicts of interest.

The filings show that LaLota, Garbarino and Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-Island Park) fall far behind the wealthiest members of the House.

In June, the Democratic-aligned advocacy group End Citizens United filed a complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics about LaLota’s failure to list the clients and revenue of his firm and for not showing individual investments in his and his spouse’s retirements accounts.

The new report responds by stating the consulting firm has no clients, income or value.

The new filing broke out the retirement funds’ individual investments, and resulted in doubling his spouse’s retirement fund total to as much as $210,000, from the $100,000 he reported in 2021.

That could be an error from use of ranges of values such as $15,001 to $50,000.

Will Kiley, LaLota's spokesman, said the account’s value now and at the end of 2022 stood at $90,000 to $100,000.

The filing also corrected other errors in last year’s report by including LaLota's home mortgage amount and omitting a boat loan and his wife’s salary he had listed in the 2021 filing because regulations do not require reporting them. Kiley said LaLota sold his stocks before taking office in January.

LaLota reported the value of his and his spouse’s retirement funds, deferred compensation, IRAs and cash at between $180,000 and $576,000.

Brett Kappel, a campaign finance and ethics lawyer at Harmon Curran in Washington, D.C., said, “His 2022 form appears to be in compliance with the reporting requirements. Whether the one he filed as a candidate was also in compliance is yet to be determined.”

End Citizens United, a nonprofit, did not respond to a request for comment.

Garbarino’s filing showed he made no stock trades in 2022 after reporting 13 trades in 2021. A change in New York law that vested him in his pension for service in the state Assembly boosted his assets with a tax-deferred $50,000 to $100,000.

He reported assets, investments and accounts worth $128,000 to $449,000, and liabilities from a home mortgage refinance of $250,000 to $500,000 and $50,000 to $100,000 for law school loans. 

D’Esposito in June reported assets, pensions, deferred compensation and bank accounts worth $100,000 to $250,000. Credit card and school loan debts totaled $25,000 to $65,000.

The disclosure reports do not include members' $174,000 annual salary.