Leaders of the state body that controls Roosevelt Island, obsessed with negative news stories about them, improperly spent $169,000 in taxpayer money to hire a “reputation management” firm to suppress that coverage online, according to a state investigation.
Although officials justified it as an effort to bring positive attention to the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp., the work was squarely focused on improving the personal reputations of its then-President and CEO, Shelton Haynes, and his deputies, according to a state inspector general report released Thursday. An attorney for Haynes disputed the findings.
The probe is the latest chapter in the years of dysfunction at the RIOC: a quasi-public entity that controls the roads, buildings, police force and transit systems on the 12,000-person island between Manhattan and Queens. The state-run corporation has already been rocked by ex-employees’ claims of corruption and retaliation, and counterclaims by RIOC’s leaders that they were the victims of discrimination at the hands of the governor’s office.
Most of that intrigue surrounded Haynes, and much of it was chronicled by two local blogs: Roosevelt Island Daily and Roosevelt Islander. According to the new inspector general’s report, RIOC employees described Haynes as “fixated on his public image and the amount of negative press that he and his colleagues received” on those websites.
Haynes took over the top job at RIOC in 2021. In December 2024, while the state probe was still pending, he was fired by the governor-appointed board without any public explanation.
Haynes and his staff first tried to combat the coverage by compiling a dossier of more than 700 blog posts about RIOC. Haynes and his then-general counsel are both Black and believed the stories were “racially charged,” the report says.
In 2022, RIOC released a request for proposals seeking a contractor for “media services.” The initial solicitation complained about “articles full of disinformation” and asked applicants to “suppress negative target links” from online search results. The RFP was later revised with more neutral language, asking bidders only to “enhance the online branding of the corporation.”
The winning bid, by Texas-based Status Labs, came in at $168,680 — just below the $175,000 threshold that would have required approval by RIOC’s board. The contract was managed by Akeem Jamal, RIOC’s assistant vice president for communications and public affairs.
During the one-year contract that began in October 2022, Status Labs sent Jamal monthly progress reports showing the “negative links” they had suppressed. The buried stories included unflattering articles about RIOC executives — such as a post about Jamal’s previous drunk-driving accusation, and Roosevelt Island Daily stories about Haynes and his aides.
Meanwhile, Status Labs wrote more than 17 flattering articles about Haynes and his team and paid to feature them as sponsored content on news websites — all in hopes of crowding out the more negative stories from Google search results. The paid posts, after being edited by Haynes and his staff, appeared in City & State, CEOWorld Magazine and BOSS Magazine, among others. (A typical headline read: “Shelton Haynes on Shaking Up Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation to Improve the Community.”)
During work hours, Haynes, Jamal and other aides sat for interviews with Status Labs to “flesh out” the content, and posed with a photographer who took headshots, the report states.
“Antagonistic blogger”
By August 2023, Status Labs concluded in a memorandum that it had been largely successful at fighting the negative stories. But it acknowledged that one “antagonistic blogger” — David Stone, who runs Roosevelt Island Daily — “is himself sophisticated and employs his own best practices to solidify and strengthen his negative articles.”
Although Status Labs argued its contract should be extended, it was allowed to expire in 2023.
Jamal left RIOC in November 2023 and now works as a communications officer for the Yonkers public school system. He did not respond to Crain’s requests for comment, and the inspector general report states he declined an interview as part of the probe.
Since Haynes, Jamal and the other aides involved in the efforts have all left RIOC, the investigation found there is no ongoing risk of state money being misspent. A spokesman for RIOC declined to comment on Friday.
But the probe found that Haynes and his team broke the state’s ethics code for public officers by using private funds for public gain. (That would have been the case even if Status Labs had only buried negative stories about RIOC, rather than the executives themselves, according to investigators.)
Milton Williams, an attorney for Haynes, said in an email that he “completely dispute[s] the inspector general’s report.” He said the investigation did not include any interview of Haynes or his general counsel, Gretchen Robinson, and “failed to review counter evidence contradicting their findings.”
Williams argued that the Status Labs contract was “necessary to counter the negative impacts” of “biased and unfavorable press;” that it was procured through a typical public process; that RIOC’s board and legal staff were aware of the contract and that some board members supported it; and that the Battery Park City Authority, a sister organization to RIOC, previously paid a similar firm to place positive stories. Williams said he plans to send a letter to the inspector general highlighting “the various inaccuracies.”
Lucy Lang, the state inspector general, said in a statement that “at a time when trust in government is touching historic lows, New York should stand as a bastion for free expression.”
“That state funds were spent to suppress negative coverage of local officials, drowning out constituents’ ability to be heard, undermines that core democratic value,” Lang said.
The IG’s office did not announce any discipline against the officials, who no longer work for the state, but said it was referring its findings to the state’s Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government.
Meanwhile, Haynes suffered another setback in recent days: A federal judge last week dismissed the lawsuit he had filed in 2023 against Gov. Kathy Hochul and other state officials, in which he alleged that the state had discriminated against him by ordering him not to respond publicly to criticism.
Another group of three former RIOC employees sued RIOC in 2023, alleging that Haynes and his team retaliated against them when they spoke out against favoritism in public contracts and alleged negligence in a drowning death at a public pool. That case ended in an unspecified settlement last year.
