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John Bolger is an investigative reporter from New York City. He tends to write about government, police, and disorder. Works appear in The Intercept, The Nation, Inside Climate News, DNAinfo, Indypendent, more. He also develops software and scrapes data.

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The Intercept: Scott Stringer Accuser's Lawyer has Deep Ties to the Anti-Union Development World That Wants to Destroy Him

Meet the Construction Attorney Who Shook Up New York’s Mayoral Race

John Bolger

Jun 2, 2021

Jean Kim, left, listens as her attorney Patricia Pastor, center, speaks to reporters during a news conference, Wednesday, April 28, 2021, in New York.

When Scott Stringer was accused of sexual misconduct in April, the accuser’s lawyer was a familiar foe to the labor unions. Read the history of Patricia Pastor, the general counsel for Ron Lattanzio and his web of dubious construction companies. For the greater part of a decade, she worked for one of the “body shops” that provided cheap non-union labor for some of the city’s biggest construction projects, including the developer behind the Hudson Yards project, Related Companies. Stringer, an ally of the unions, became a known enemy of Related.

When the labor union began organizing workers at Trade Off, Pastor filed retaliatory lawsuits. But Trade Off had already caught the attorney general’s eye for a system of gross sexual abuses. Read the scoop for The Intercept with Ryan Grim!