Mount Vernon, New York, Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard violated the Hatch Act with campaign mailers before the June 2025 Democratic primaries, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel determined, according to a ruling obtained by the New York Post.
Patterson-Howard, a Democrat, has not been charged with a crime.
The office issued a warning letter and “advised that if in the future she engages in prohibited political activity, OSC would consider such activity to be a willful and knowing violation of the law.”
The mailers, stamped as an “important message” from the city, promoted candidates she backed, investigators found. “The language of these campaign mailers reasonably would lead residents to believe they contained official business from their mayor,” wrote Erica Hamrick, deputy chief of the office’s Hatch Act Unit.
The Hatch Act bars state and local officials whose jobs are partly federally funded from using their office to sway an election.
Samuel Rivers, the activist who filed the complaint, called for the mayor’s resignation.
The ruling follows attempted murder charges against Jennifer Lackard, a deputy police commissioner Patterson-Howard hired in 2020. Lackard allegedly accompanied her son to a drive-by shooting outside a Bronx courthouse, the Post reported. The mayor has defended the hire, saying Lackard passed a “rigorous background check.”
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