New York City Lawmaker Accused Of Using Government Staff For Political Fundraising

NEW YORK — A New York City Council member allegedly directed at least one government staffer to raise money for his campaign and an outside group that supports him politically, according to a whistleblower complaint obtained by POLITICO.

The complaint — lodged against Democratic Council member Christopher Marte — was filed with the New York City Department of Investigation last week by Meng Qin Zou, a Chinese community liaison in Marte’s government office.

Zou claims Marte’s office tried to fire her in June after she objected to being saddled with political duties while on government time. In their attempt to terminate her, Marte’s team accused Zou of being violent with colleagues, Zou told POLITICO, adding that they backed off sacking her once she got her union involved. Zou denies the claim about violence, while her union, the Association of Legislative Employees, said it couldn’t discuss the specifics of her case.

“Following the termination attempt, I came to understand more clearly that what I had been directed to do in the Councilmember’s office was not normal, and it confirmed my belief that the conduct I had been asked to carry out was both unethical and potentially illegal,” Zou wrote in her complaint.

The complaint lays out how Zou was allegedly directed by supervisors to work on political matters “during office hours.”

Zou’s accusations raise questions about whether Marte and his advisers broke ethics and campaign finance laws, including prohibitions against elected officials using public resources for political purposes. The complaint — which contains text messages and other records supporting parts of Zou’s account — comes as public trust in New York City government remains shaky following the corruption scandals that engulfed former Mayor Eric Adams’ administration.

Marte, who mounted a longshot bid to become New York City Council speaker last year, did not return calls and text messages seeking comment about Zou’s complaint on Wednesday. His spokesperson did not respond to inquiries either.

A spokesperson for the Department of Investigation, which acts as the city government’s in-house corruption watchdog, declined to comment.

Zou doesn’t speak English fluently and wrote her DOI complaint with the help of a political consultant a friend put her in touch with. The same friend translated for Zou in an interview with POLITICO this week. Both the friend and the consultant were granted anonymity as they aren’t permitted to speak to reporters for work-related reasons.

Zou began working in Marte’s government office in 2023 but has never been on the three-term Council member’s campaign payroll. She alleges in her complaint that Marte and his chief of staff, Caitlin Kelmar, informed her “early on” that her duties would include political fundraising.

“These practices were rampant, and included other staff,” she wrote in the complaint.

Kelmar did not respond to detailed questions about her communications with Zou.

A text exchange from this past April between Marte and Zou shows the local lawmaker discussed campaign fundraising with her. The texts, which were included in the complaint, are in English. Zou told POLITICO she uses Google Translate to write work-related messages.

“Hey Chris, the people … asked what the donation for this birthday party was for. They said, ‘You’re not running for office this year’….,” Zou wrote in an April 6 text, referring to attendees of a birthday party for Marte that in Zou’s description doubled as a political fundraiser for him. “They asked me to explain the reason. Can you let me know.”

“Next year, I’m going to start announcing for a potential run for public advocate,” Marte replied. “It’s a citywide race so we have to start early to fundraise.”

Zou, who alleges she was instructed to staff the birthday party as part of her government job, wrote back: “If this year’s event is successful, we can hold another birthday party and raise funds next year. We can do it every year!”

Marte replied, “Hahahaha.”

A few days later, Zou wrote to Marte again, informing him the birthday party had raised a total of $10,000. Marte — whose public advocate aspirations haven’t been previously reported — sent a one-word response: “Awesome!”

Marty Connor, a former New York state senator and campaign finance lawyer, said Zou’s allegations, at a minimum, indicate Marte appears to have flouted conflicts of interest law and Council ethics rules barring lawmakers from using public resources for political purposes, violations that can trigger fines. Connor noted city agencies like the Department of Investigation and the Campaign Finance Board can refer cases for prosecution by state or federal authorities in cases deemed especially egregious.

“If a City Council member directs staff to raise political funds and tells them they have to do it as part of their job, that’s a violation,” Connor said.

A DOI complaint doesn’t automatically trigger an investigation. The watchdog agency typically conducts a review of complaints to assess whether there’s enough cause for concern to launch a formal investigation.

In her complaint, Zou claims a longtime Marte associate, Steven Wong, played a major role in orchestrating the fundraising operation, including as recently as this spring. “On several occasions, I observed Steven Wong bringing campaign contributions to Councilmember Marte’s district office and instructed others to do the same,” the complaint says.

In her interview with POLITICO, Zou said through her friend who was interpreting that she was also occasionally told by supervisors to go into a backroom of Marte’s district office to calculate such campaign contributions, sometimes in the middle of workdays.

The allegations of Wong’s continued involvement with Marte come after he resigned his post as a senior adviser in the Council member’s office in March 2023. His resignation followed a Daily News report outlining allegations that he had verbally harassed a Chinese language journalist, including calling her misogynistic slurs.

Reached by phone Wednesday, Wong described himself as a “volunteer for life” and said he doesn’t get paid for his work with Marte. He hung up when asked how he has been able to keep working with Marte despite his 2023 resignation, though he later wrote in a text that accusations against him about abusive behavior are “incorrect.” He did not respond to texts inquiring about the allegation that he brought campaign donations to Marte’s office.

Marte’s team did not answer questions about Wong.

‘Working with them is important’ 

According to her complaint, Zou was also “asked” to fundraise for No More 24, a super PAC that supported Council candidates, including Marte, in last year’s local elections. The PAC favored candidates who committed to voting for a Marte bill that would outlaw 24-hour shifts for home health aides in New York City.

In a September 2025 text exchange included in the complaint, Kelmar, Marte’s chief of staff, sent Zou a No More 24 donation form.

“Still a limit of $100 cash,” Kelmar instructed Zou, referring to the cap on how much individuals can give in hard currency to a super PAC.

Also attached to the complaint: A photo of a hand-written log of more than a dozen donations that Zou alleges she solicited for No More 24, using the form provided by Kelmar.

Nelson Mar, an attorney for No More 24, said Wednesday that the PAC “has no knowledge of or information about these allegations."

There are several different potential legal violations at play for Marte’s team when it comes to the No More 24 activities, according to Connor.

In addition to prohibitions against government staffers politicking on government time, elected officials and their campaigns are strictly prohibited from coordinating activities with super PACs that spend independently in support of them. Since public records show No More 24 spent $5,999 on ads and other efforts boosting Marte last year, his team’s involvement in fundraising for the PAC could violate coordination rules — and such infractions are taken very seriously by the city’s Campaign Finance Board, Connor said.

“The CFB can come down really hard on him,” Connor said, noting that the board can levy substantial fines against candidates who violate coordination rules and force them to repay public matching funds.

Marte, who received over $390,000 in public matching funds in 2025 alone, did not respond to questions about his team’s engagements with No More 24.

A spokesperson for the Campaign Finance Board declined to comment.

No More 24 wasn’t the only outside group Marte’s team may have coordinated with. The Chinese Staff and Workers’ Association, a local nonprofit, helped Marte distribute flyers for his 2023 reelection campaign, according to texts between Zou and Kelmar referenced in the complaint.

In a text from fall 2023, Kelmar even suggested Zou could work at the nonprofit’s office during regular work hours. “I know sometimes working with cswa is difficult, there can be a lot of meetings, but I don’t mind if you go there sometimes during the workday because working with them is important to Chris’s office,” Kelmar wrote in an October 2023 text to Zou.

In her complaint, Zou framed the text exchange as “regarding coordination for electoral purposes.”

The Chinese Staff and Workers’ Association is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, a designation that exempts it from many tax obligations, federal records show. But such nonprofits “are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office,” according to a fact sheet from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

“The relationship between the organization and the councilmember’s office was not above board,” Zou wrote in her complaint.

Reached over phone Wednesday, Zishun Ning, an organizer with the Chinese Staff and Workers’ Association, said he’s unaware of the text exchanges between Zou and Kelmar about his group’s alleged involvement in canvassing for Marte. But he said it’s “a lie” to claim his group materially helped Marte’s campaign.

“As an organization, we never endorse or flyer for candidates,” he said.

‘I think it’s best to ignore him’ 

On top of the allegations of fundraising malfeasance, texts included in Zou’s complaint paint a troubling portrait of Wong, the Marte adviser who resigned in 2023.

In a series of texts to Marte this spring, Zou claimed that Wong had written “really nasty things” about her online in posts to Chinese community forums, some of which were reviewed by POLITICO, and verbally attacked her in person.

“Just last year, right in front of members from several community groups … he publicly verbally abused me, calling me a ‘worthless loser,’ an ‘idiot,’ and ‘human trash,’” Zou texted Marte in April. “If you don’t believe me, you can go ask the people from those clubs.”

Marte — who condemned Wong in 2023 for using "unprofessional and inappropriate” language about the journalist he allegedly harassed — responded to Zou by calling Wong’s behavior toward her “unacceptable,” “rude and disrespectful.” But, according to the text exchange, the Council member didn’t say he would stop working with Wong.

Rather, he wrote to Zou: “It’s best to ignore him. We don’t need people seeing us fight with each other, especially in public. If he says anything to you, you should let me know and I can talk to him…It’s better to deal with it soon than let the anger grow.”