Mazi Pilip finances: Assets reported to Nassau differ from federal disclosure

Nassau County Legis. Mazi Melesa Pilip, the Republican nominee in the 3rd Congressional District special election, listed assets on her county financial disclosure that were not included in her filings as a federal candidate, newly obtained county records show.

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.

Newsday obtained the Nassau financial disclosure this week through a state Freedom of Information Law request made last month. Income amounts and ranges, unlike on her House disclosures, were redacted. The county said the information was exempt from release to prevent invasion of privacy.

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.

Pilip, 44, of Great Neck, faces Democrat Tom Suozzi, 61, of Glen Cove, in the Feb. 13 special election to replace expelled GOP Rep. George Santos in New York’s 3rd District, which covers northern Nassau, South Shore communities such as Massapequa, and parts of eastern Queens.

The personal finances of both Pilip and Suozzi, who held the 3rd District seat from 2017 through 2022, are under scrutiny following Santos’ fabrications about his biography and federal criminal allegations that he defrauded campaign donors for personal profit and lied on his financial disclosures.

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.”

But Devine responded: "Any attempts to otherwise characterize the proper treatment of this property ... are either based on a lack of reporting knowledge or politically motivated."

By Paul LaRocco

paul.larocco@newsday.com@paullarocco

Paul LaRocco is a reporter on the investigations desk. Since starting at Newsday in late 2010, he has also covered Nassau and Suffolk county politics and government and the Town of Oyster Bay.