A disgraced Staten Island lawyer who once proposed trial by combat to resolve a legal dispute claims he hasn’t been paid for campaign work he did in 2017, including creating fake Facebook pages.
Richard Luthmann, who pleaded guilty in 2019 to extortion and fraud charges related to a scrap metal scheme and was sentenced to four years in prison, claims City Councilwoman Kamillah Hanks (D-Staten Island) and Kevin Barry Love, owe him more than $86,000 for work he did on her failed 2017 City Council campaign.
The work included creating a “fake Facebook page” against Hanks’ then-rival, Debi Rose, who won the election, according to a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.
Hanks was elected to the council in 2021.
She did not respond to a message.
Love vehemently denied the allegations, calling them an “outrageous vulgar lie.”
“I never offered, discussed or had any knowledge nor involvement in any of Luthmann’s crimes. He has done this to many others. Missing from his lawsuit is not a single piece of evidence other then the rantings of a mentally ill man,” he said in a statement, adding, “I intend to seek damages for this fraud.”
