NYC Council candidate’s claims of working as a teacher and living in Brooklyn in doubt: Daily News investigation

A City Council candidate in southern Brooklyn has made her teaching career a cornerstone of her political identity.

On the campaign trail this year, the Republican Council hopeful, Anna Belfiore-Delfaus, has repeatedly described herself as a city public school teacher and spoken to the plight of working in classrooms during the pandemic. In a Feb. 6 tweet, she even claimed she for a time “couldn’t go back to work” because of her refusal to comply with the Education Department’s since-rescinded coronavirus vaccine mandate.

But there’s just one problem: Belfiore-Delfaus hasn’t been on the city payroll as a teacher for nearly a decade — and public records cast doubt over whether she even resides in the borough she hopes to represent in the Council.

City payroll data reviewed by the Daily News have no record of Belfiore-Delfaus being paid since 2015, when she went on child-care-related leave from her special education teaching job at Public School 244 in Brooklyn. According to an Education Department source directly familiar with the matter, there’s no record of her attempting to return to work or seeking an exemption to the agency’s vaccine mandate, either.

“She was neither asked to be vaccinated nor did she try to come back,” the source told The News, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an employee’s work history.

Belfiore-Delfaus, who’s running to represent the 47th Council District, which includes Bay Ridge, Coney Island and Gravesend, did not return multiple phone calls, text messages and emails seeking comment last week.

Republican Brooklyn Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, a prominent supporter of Belfiore-Delfaus’ campaign, also did not respond to requests for comment.

Belfiore-Delfaus’ apparent misrepresentation of her employment drew a rebuke from Brooklyn Councilman Ari Kagan, an ex-Democrat who switched party affiliation to Republican this year and is running against her in June’s primary to get the GOP nomination for the 47th District.

“Anyone who runs for political office should expect the public to know the truth about their work. … I don’t understand why anybody, including Anna, would hide their place of work,” said Kagan. “I don’t understand why anyone would do this; the truth always comes out.”

In addition to the post about vaccine mandate resistance, Belfiore-Delfaus routinely calls herself an “NYC public school teacher” on Twitter, and keeps that descriptor in her profile bio, next to “District 47 City Council Candidate.”

In a Dec. 19, 2022, tweet responding to a post from Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) about municipal health care policy, Belfiore-Delfaus wrote, “As a NYC public school teacher I thank you. Keep fighting the good fight.”

A more recent example came in a Feb. 1 interview Belfiore-Delfaus did on “New York’s Finest: Retired & Unfiltered,” a podcast hosted by ex-NYPD Officer John Macari.

Referencing the outset of the pandemic — at which point she hadn’t been on the payroll as teacher for some five years — Belfiore-Delfaus told Macari, “Initially when schools were reopened, we used to get emails updating us on how many cases were found in the building. … We were getting emails back-to back-to-back, you know, ‘New case, new case, three cases, four cases.’ Now, we get an email maybe once in a blue moon saying there’s one case of COVID in the building.”

On top of her employment claims, Belfiore-Delfaus’ place of residency has lately raised eyebrows in the 47th District.

Voter registration records show that as recently as January, she claimed as her home address a townhouse in Westerleigh, S.I., outside the confines of the 47th district.

However, in official petition paperwork recently submitted to the city Board of Elections, Belfiore-Delfaus lists her home address as a one-family house on 79th St. in Bay Ridge — which is within the district.

Belfiore-Delfaus’ husband is still registered at the Staten Island home, for which he has been listed in city records as the owner since December 2020. The couple has three children together.

Though her petition forms claim she lives in Bay Ridge, The News spotted Belfiore-Delfaus walking into the Staten Island house with one of her daughters Friday afternoon.

The Bay Ridge address Belfiore-Delfaus claims as her home in the petition documents was bought by a woman named Sabrina Sorrentino in January 2022, according to a deed submitted to the state Taxation and Finance Department. To buy the property, Sorrentino — whose relation to Belfiore-Delfaus is unclear — took out a $962,500 mortgage that has to be paid off by Feb. 1, 2052, state records show.

Reached by phone last week, Sorrentino refused to say if Belfiore-Delfaus lives at her house.

“You’ll have to call me at another time,” Sorrentino said before hanging up. She did not respond to followup calls or texts.

Under city election rules, candidates don’t have to reside in the Council districts they’re vying to represent while campaigning this year because the lines were redrawn as part of a once-in-a-decade redistricting process. Candidates do have to reside in the districts they’re running for on Election Day, though.

The question marks around Belfiore-Delfaus’ employment and residence come as scrutiny remains heightened over political candidates‘ résumés because of various lies about his life by Rep. George Santos (R-Nassau, Queens).

Kagan said Belfiore-Delfaus is making it seem like she’s registered at the Brooklyn address in order to make sure she meets the Election Day requirement ahead of time.

“If she does live on Staten Island, she is allowed to run in Brooklyn, but if she does live on Staten Island and she’s putting an address on a petition that’s Brooklyn, that’s a bigger problem,” he said.

Bay Ridge resident Michael Ragusa, who mounted a short-lived Republican bid for the 47th District before dropping out this month after being accused of petition malfeasance, said he has stopped by the address on 79th St. on several recent occasions. He claimed he’s never seen Belfiore-Delfaus there.

“People knew from the start she didn’t live here,” Ragusa said. “So it’s time to be honest with the voters and come clean.”

With Gardiner Anderson