flared<\/a> over the fund at council last year.<\/p>\n\u201cUnder the former Gainey Administration, specific procedures were being exploited to the detriment of the City of Pittsburgh by funding specific organizations without following proper procedures,\u201d the affidavit says, additionally positing that those practices \u201cassisted the City of Pittsburgh into the financial issues of the past including the recently announced 2025 deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the affidavit, investigators raise questions about \u201csole source\u201d or \u201cno-bid\u201d contracts that bypass typical contract procedures, and the Gainey administration\u2019s handling of some organizations as the only possible providers for certain services.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the City of Pittsburgh Administration was trying to claim \u2018Single Source\u2019 provider for the exemptions, specific documents would be required, and Friedson believed that someone would have had to lie on the documentation submitted,\u201d the affidavit states. \u201cThe vendors obtaining these exemptions should not qualify for either sole source or single source.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the affidavit, the investigators quote Friedson as saying former City Solicitor Krysia Kubiak advised members of council not to read city contracts for themselves before voting on them. The affidavit also contends that the city never received work product for certain initiatives that it funded.<\/p>\n
The affidavit also makes a number of references to sitting City Councilor Khari Mosley, alleging various connections between Mosley and 1Hood Media, an organization that has received city money, including through grants administered by outside organizations.<\/p>\n
The basis for some claims remains murky.<\/p>\n
The affidavit, for example, does not provide a written record for its claim that Kubiak \u201chad told City Council that they were not allowed to read any city contract\u201d and were obliged to approve them. Friedson told WESA Tuesday that Kubiak had made the claim in the form of a legal opinion protected by attorney-client privilege \u2014 even though council hadn\u2019t sought her guidance. In doing so, he said, she had \u201cexploit[ed] attorney-client privilege\u201d to keep her prohibition under wraps.<\/p>\n
Kubiak, who has since left the city for a post at Duquesne Light Company, did not respond to requests for comment. Coghill also declined to comment on the material in the affidavit, due to the ongoing nature of the investigation. He said he had been contacted by the DA\u2019s office to do an interview with detectives.<\/p>\n
But by Tuesday morning, some of those named in the document were pushing back against its claims, at times expressing bafflement at having been included in it at all.<\/p>\n
Mosley is named repeatedly in the affidavit, though his first name is misspelled in places and the affidavit identifies him as having been the \u201cowner and operator\u201d of 1Hood Media \u2014 a title that organizers of the 20-year-old group say he\u2019s never held. The affidavit also claims he formerly worked for Gainey, a claim that is unsupported in the document and that Mosley denies.<\/p>\n
And while Mosley is a board member of the group, the affidavit does not identify him as taking any action in his capacity as a city council member, other than recusing himself from votes involving the group.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we looked at the affidavit, it\u2019s really an attempt to attack Khari\u201d by suggesting impropriety, said Jasiri X, the co-founder and CEO of 1Hood Media. \u201cWe were the collateral damage. We know that these are individuals that want to gain political power for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jasiri X said the allegations were an effort to undermine Black political groups and to discredit the Stop the Violence fund, even though rates of serious crime decreased during Gainey\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor right-wing folks, that\u2019s the talking point: Black people kill themselves. But when we build successful models to reduce violence in our communities, then you don\u2019t even support that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The 1Hood label applies to different entities: 1Hood Media, which receives city grants for community outreach and cultural programs, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit; 1Hood Power is a 501(c)(4) that advocates on political questions. Jasiri X said the two entities maintain separate offices and separate financial structures.<\/p>\n
Mosley had a foot in both organizations: Prior to his election in 2023, he headed up 1Hood Power\u2019s political engagement efforts. But he left that job before taking office, and Jasiri X said Mosley is not paid as a 1Hood board member.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Mosley told reporters, \u201cI did not benefit from anything\u201d having to do with city grants to the group.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no connection between me and the insinuations and the inaccuracies \u2026 that are in the document,\u201d he said. \u201cI recused myself on all votes of 1Hood Media.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another recipient of city funds identified in the affidavit, Cohen Law Group founder and former City Councilor Dan Cohen, also said Tuesday that the allegations involving him are entirely untrue.<\/p>\n
The affidavit says \u201cFriedson stated that the Cohen Law Group was hired to conduct a telecommunication asset study for approximately $1,500,000 and the City of Pittsburgh had received nothing in return. No reports, at the time of this interview, had ever been provided for this contract.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Cohen, who held the council seat later occupied by Peduto, told WESA Tuesday morning there was a good reason he had not produced a telecommunication asset study: He had never actually had a contract to do the work.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur firm was never hired to conduct a telecommunications asset study for the city of Pittsburgh,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what they are referring to, but it\u2019s not our firm.”<\/p>\n
Cohen\u2019s firm specializes in helping local governments negotiate with cable providers and related legal tasks. He says the firm has worked on a handful of tasks for the city, the largest being a renegotiation of contracts with cable providers Verizon and Comcast, but \u201cwe were hired in the Peduto administration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Negotiating with cable firms can be a lengthy process, but while work on some contracts extended into the Gainey years, Cohen said, \u201cin none of them were we hired by the Gainey administration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adding to the confusion: While the affidavit names the Cohen Law Group as a firm whose contract was of interest to investigators, it describes the firm using the corporate biography for a different, similarly named firm.<\/p>\n
Asked by WESA about the contract, Friedson said he believed the telecommunications asset study dated back to the Peduto administration. He said the Cohen group\u2019s name, along with that of other recipients of large-dollar sums, appeared in a list of \u201cno-bid contracts of a period of time that was above a certain amount. Just because that vendor is listed doesn’t necessarily mean there was wrongdoing. It just means these are high-number no-bid contracts to be looked into.\u201d<\/p>\n
City Councilor Barb Warwick, who was closely allied with Gainey, said, \u201cThe allegations are serious, but at least from what I\u2019ve seen, the source of the allegations feels like four hens gossiping at an Eat\u2019n Park. So I would certainly want to see more detailed information on what the evidence is before passing any kind of judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An unsealed application for a search warrant filed earlier this year by the office of District Attorney Stephen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-291845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}