The City Council’s Ethics Committee is expected to vote as soon as next week to formally censure Councilwoman Inna Vernikov for openly carrying a gun at an October 2023 pro-Palestinian protest, sources familiar told the Daily News.
The move to censure isn’t expected to come with any concrete penalty, such as a suspension or fine, the sources said. But the censure measure would condemn her actions and be entered into the official Council record as a formal rebuke of Vernikov — an unusual action for the body to take against one of its own members.
The pistol-packing Republican was arrested and criminally charged shortly after the 2023 pro-Palestine rally, which she was counterprotesting, but the charges were later dropped after police found the weapon was missing a piece and therefore didn’t work.
The censure measure would then move to the full Council, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. The full body is then expected to vote on it at its final meeting of the year — and of the legislative session — on Dec. 18.
Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images
New York City Council member Inna Vernikov is pictured during a New York City Council Committee meeting on Sept. 6, 2023. (Photo by Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Initially, the panel offered to let Vernikov avoid censure if she offered an unequivocal public apology for her actions, sources familiar with the proceedings told The News.
But the councilwoman told the panel she would not offer a public apology unless she could also point some blame at the pro-Palestine demonstrators who showed up at the Brooklyn College campus just five days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack in Israel. That was an unacceptable compromise for the ethics committee members, especially Diana Ayala and Crystal Hudson, sources said.
The committee met Tuesday to decide their course of action, but adjourned without reaching a formal decision.
Vernikov, a Republican who won re-election and whose district covers Brighton Beach and other southern Brooklyn neighborhoods, didn’t immediately return a request for comment Friday.
While Vernikov has a license to carry, it’s illegal in New York under a 2022 law for anyone to wield firearms in “sensitive locations,” which include school grounds. The Brooklyn district attorney’s office, however, dropped the charges against Vernikov after NYPD officers determined her gun was inoperable due to it missing a recoil spring.
