Noerdlinger and McFarlan
DailyMail: Chief of staff to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife has been dating a convicted killer who has publicly denounced police officers as “pigs” it was revealed Thursday. Rachel Noerdlinger has been in a serious romantic relationship with ex-convict Hassaun McFarlan, 36, since 2010.
This past January, she joined Mayor de Blasio’s team, and in her capacity as aide to First Lady Chirlane McCray she has been allowed to attend high-level NYPD meetings.
Hassaun McFarlan’s criminal record, first brought to light by DNAInfo, goes back to his first arrest at age 15 for shooting to death an older boy in a dispute over a goose-down jacket in Harlem.
Most recently, he got in trouble with the law last year when he nearly ran over a New Jersey state police officer while driving his girlfriend’s Mercedes-Benz, according to court records obtained by the news site. Two of McFarlan’s five arrests on charges ranging from driving on a suspended license to drug trafficking took place while he was dating Noerdlinger.
de Blasio, Noerdlinger, and Sharpton
The 43-year-old chief of staff got her start as a publicist representing attorney Johnnie Cochran and prominent civil rights leader race baiter Rev Al Sharpton, who later hired her as a public relations adviser for his organization the National Action Network.
All the while, Noerdlinger’s live-in boyfriend has been raving against police officers on social media. In one post, which has since been removed along with McFarlan’s Facebook account, he reportedly wrote, “I can’t come outside without the pigs f***ing with me in the hood.”
When asked whether the bombshell revelations concerning Noerdlinger’s personal life might result in her dismissal, de Blasio’s spokeswoman Rebecca Katz stated to the New York Post: “Rachel’s mot going anywhere.” Katz however, pointed out that “no one at the city hall condones criminal behavior or disparagement of the NYPD, including Rachel.”
The spokeswoman went on to say that Ms. Noerdlinger, a single mother of one, was “a strong and independent woman” whose core values and beliefs are in line with the de Blasio administration.
Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch, however, expressed concern regarding Noerdlinger’s access to sensitive police information and called into question the aide’s judgment. “It raises serious questions about her judgment and character and the quality of the counsel she provides to City Hall” he told the Post. “She should not be in that position.”
Attorney Jeffrey Lichtman, who represents Hassaun McFarlan and Rachel Noerdlinger, hit out at her critics saying that she performs her duties as chief of staff without any input from her boyfriend. “To her credit, she’s a loyal woman and a strong woman and she would not put her career ahead of people she cares about,” said Lichtman.
McFarlan, the song of a drug dealer from Harlem, has been arrested at least five times since 1993, when he shot dead Kenneth Carter, 18, over a jacket at a housing project. He pleased guilty to a manslaughter charge and spent the next seven years in prison.
In 2003, McFarlan ran afoul of the law a second time after he was busted as part of an interstate crack trafficking ring. McFarlan ended up behind bars yet again, this time in Massachusetts, after pleading guilty to a slew of drug charges. He was released in 2007.
Since then, McFarlan has been arrested at least three times for vehicular violations and marijuana possession; last November, he came close to mowing down a police officer responding to an accident. Through it all, McFarlan has been a vehement critic of law enforcement, referring to officers as “pigs” and criticizing the controversial stop-and-frisk policy.
In January 2012, McFarlan was apparently furious after reading a story about a police officer in Staten island who pleaded guilty to arresting an innocent black man on trumped up charges. “The system sucks this pig should be charged with a civil rights violation,” he wrote at the time in a post, which has since been deleted.
Noerdlinger, Sharpton, McCray, and de Blasio
Al Sharpton cautiously has come to Rachel Noerdlinger’s defense, telling the New York Daily News that she should not have to answer for her boyfriend’s past actions.
DCG
