Democrat Tom Suozzi has stake in companies controlled by party chief Jay Jacobs

Former Rep. Tom Suozzi, the Democrats’ pick in the 3rd Congressional District special election, has a long-standing financial interest in companies controlled by Nassau and state Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs, who helped Suozzi secure the nomination, records show.

The business stake, first reported by Politico in October, resurfaced after Suozzi, of Glen Cove, and Republican-backed Mazi Melesa Pilip, a first-term Nassau County legislator, kicked off their campaigns to replace ousted GOP Rep. George Santos. The special election is Feb. 13.

The National Republican Campaign Committee on Friday released a memo with various attacks on Suozzi’s record. One item focused on a federal pandemic relief loan received by Jacobs’ HCDC Holdings LLC of Glen Cove.

The company in 2021 received a Paycheck Protection Program loan of approximately $350,000, later forgiven, according to the U.S. government’s pandemic oversight website. Suozzi was part of a bipartisan coalition in Congress that broadly supported hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to keep businesses paying employees during COVID-19 shutdowns, but had no role in approving individual applications.

Medical practices run by Pilip’s husband — where Pilip has said she worked as operations director — also received nearly $300,000 in PPP loans, during a period in which one of the offices is accused in a state lawsuit of breaching a lease and not paying tens of thousands of dollars in rent, court records show.

The PPP loan to Jacobs' HCDC Holdings was meant to cover payroll for roughly 200 people, according to the federal website.

HCDC, or Hampton Country Day Camp, is one of multiple entities controlled by Jacobs as part of his summer camp business. It has been consistently listed on Suozzi’s House Financial Disclosures since his 2017 election, records show.

Jacobs told Newsday on Monday that Suozzi has never drawn a salary from his companies and his 10% investment — which Jacobs said Suozzi inherited from his late father — goes back at least 15 years. Jacobs noted he endorsed Suozzi's opponent, Gov. Kathy Hochul, in last year's Democratic gubernatorial primary.

Jacobs said his business relationship with Suozzi had “nothing to do with the decision,” to nominate Suozzi in the special election. The winner will have to run for reelection next November, after facing potential primary opponents in June. 

“Tom has a minority investment that has nothing to do with the operations of HCDC Holdings,” said Kim Devlin, a senior adviser for the Suozzi campaign.

The Jacobs entities, which operate camps and own associated real estate on the East End of Long Island, are among Suozzi's diverse portfolio of assets and “unearned income,” or investment returns, according to his House financial disclosures.

During his tenure in Congress, from 2017 through 2022, Suozzi typically reported unearned income of between $50,001 and $100,000, or $100,000 and $1 million, each year from HCDC Holdings, with the asset valued at between $50,001 and $100,000, disclosures show. The forms only require dollar amounts to be listed in broad ranges.

Suozzi has disclosed owning a 10% minority interest in HCDC Holdings and an associated real estate company, as well as a 3% interest in another of Jacobs’ camp companies, Southampton Country Day Camp LLC and its associated real estate holding company. Suozzi sometimes reported annual returns ranging from a few hundred dollars to between $5,000 and $15,000.

NRCC spokeswoman Savannah Viar in a statement called Suozzi the “picture of a career politician” and said his financial interest in a company that received pandemic relief shows “he uses his position and power to benefit himself, not Long Island.”

Jacobs, whose stint as Nassau Democratic chairman began in 2001,  replied by criticizing Republicans of twisting facts and “muddying the waters.”

Jacobs argued: “So he's got the stock in my company. I'm working, he makes the profit … So I give him a congressional seat? It doesn't make sense. It's backwards.”

Companies owned by Dr. Adalbert Pilip, husband of Mazi Pilip, also received PPP loans, according to federal records.

Mazi Pilip, of Great Neck, has said she worked as operations director at her husband's Smithtown-based New York Comprehensive Medical Care practice. One of the companies her husband uses to run the practice, A.P. New York Comprehensive Medical Care, is accused in a state lawsuit of breaching a multiyear lease for a facility in Bay Shore, failing to pay about $72,000 in rent due as of late 2020 and owing an additional $497,000 for the remaining years of the lease.

Lawyers for Dr. Pilip have denied the allegations in court. Federal records show Dr. Pilip's companies received at least three PPP loans in 2020 and 2021 totaling about $293,000. They were listed as preserving more than 30 jobs, but the largest loan was also earmarked, in part, to pay rent, according to the pandemic oversight site. The loans were later forgiven.

Nassau Republican spokesman Mike Deery has called the lawsuit “an ongoing lease dispute between a private business … and a landlord.” In a statement Monday, he did not address the PPP loan, instead criticizing Democrats for “shaming a mother of 7 children for her husband's business management.”

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.