Brooklyn Dems Spend Unauthorized Funds Protecting District Leader Incumbents, List No Contact Info and Slew of Erroneous Photos on Website

Who is the Brooklyn Democratic Party actually serving, and does it run well?

Jun 17, 2026

The Kings County Democratic Committee has been spending party funds promoting District Leader incumbents (accronymed as DLs for convenience) without taking any official votes to authorize the spending, against a slate of challangers backed by the local reform group, New Kings Democrats (NKD). The NKD is running spirited challenges for nine DL seats. They have had to fundraise their own money and run their campaigns for District Leader completly seperately from the Brooklyn Democratic Party apparatus. In contrast, mailers and campaign literature have been received promoting the incumbents that show them paid for by the Kings County Democratic Committee. It is commonly known that Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn rules the party with an iron fist, even pulling a Brooklyn Dems endorsement of Govornor Kathy Hochul on a whim after being displeased with the selection of former NYC Council Speaker Adrienne Adams for Lieutenant Governor. Bichotte Hermelyn is also an incumbent state assemblymember, representing central Brooklyn’s 42nd Assembly District.

An example of a mailer promoting District Leaders known to be supported by Bichotte Hermelyn, according to Democratic sources, is below.

This mailer is supporting Anthony Beckford and Michelle Tege in AD 43. It lists the Kings County Democratic County Committee as the entity paying for it.

Kings County Democratic Committee Transactions

State of the Left has received more reports of District Leader mailers in other areas being paid for by the same entity. According to campaign finance reports, The Kings County Democratic Committee received a $25,000.00 loan from the Bichote Equity Leadership PAC on 6/13/24 and another $35,000.00 wire transfer contribution on 6/8/26. In the last several weeks, numerous expenditures have been to made to Brooklyn Printers Inc, Sinch Simple Texting, JMS Print and Mail, and EVUS for robo calls. However, as per the below photos, it is impossible to know exactly how much went to which candidates.

These two photos from the NYSBOE Campaign Finance Disclosure website show the, loan, wire transfer, and expenses.

Bichote Equity Leadership PAC Transactions

The Bichote Equity Leadership PAC (accronymed as BEL PAC) is a different entity from two other campaign committees that exist to support her, Bichotte for Assembly and Bichotte for New York. In the last six months, BEL PAC has received $11,500.00 from NY Anesthesiologists PAC and $9000.00 from Harry Adjmi. Additionally, it shows $4,802.50 from Actblue. However, this is most likely donations from multiple individuals put through the online processor, Actblue, and all reported in one lump sum. If that is the case, it is undoubtedly a campaign finance finance violation, as individual contributions to Actblue are supposed to be reported as such. If they are not, there is now way to know who the donations are coming from. Most of these transactions can be viewed in the below screenshot.

Another $6000.00 donation from NY Anesthesiologists PAC was made in December of 2025 and is not visible here.

Kings County Democratic Committee Process

Amidst these expenditures and transfers of funds, there are no meeting minutes from Brooklyn Democratic Party Executive Committee meetings to show any votes being taken to approve these funds being received or spent on District Leader races. It would appear these decisions are being made unilaterally by a few people at the top of the organization, most likely, Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn.

Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair, Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn.

If any registered democrats in Brooklyn wanted to contact their respective district leaders to voice support or opposition to any of these party acitivities, they could not do so even if they wanted to. This is because the Brooklyn Dems website seems to list no contact info for any of the district leaders. Officially-speaking, District Leader is an elected position in each New York State Assembly District. As such, they are supposed to represent average registered Democrats on the Brooklyn Democratic Party Executive Committee. This would include input from Democratic voters on how the DLs vote on party matters. However, accepting input from the estimated 1.2 million registered Democrats in Brooklyn is impossible if with no contact information listed for any of the DLs.

Addiitonally, after clicking on all 44 photos available of District Leaders on the Brooklyn Dems Leadership website page, State of the Left has learned that 24 of the 44 photos have incorrect photos showing other people or random internet images. A number of other photos show nothing else when clicking on them. It is unclear for how many years this has been the case. This was first discovered during the publication of a story that involved a Field Leader for NYS Assemblymember Erik Dilan, but included the presence of AD-54 District Leader Heriberto Mateo. Some examples include, but are not limited to, the images below.

Example 1: Kalman Yeger and Jennifer Faucher (AD 41)