Infamous subway vigilante Curtis Sliwa’s mayoral campaign has shelled out nearly $35,000 on Ubers and taxis — but he justified the runaway spending Thursday as necessary “because of threats on my life.”
The Republican nominee — who has made a career patrolling the subways with his crew of beret-wearing Guardian Angels — spent $30,000 alone for hundreds of trips on the rideshare app between February and last month, according to campaign filings reviewed by The Post.
Over the same seven-month time frame, the third-place GOP firebrand also charged around $4,700 to his campaign for nearly 200 cabs, the disclosure filed with the Campaign Finance Board shows.
The total spending was approximately 135% more than front-runner Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani’s campaign spent, according to the filings.
Pressed by The Post on the spending, Sliwa said he was worried about safety after allegedly being offered bribes to ditch his campaign so ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo has a better shot against Mamdani.
“I can justify those expenses, and now, because of the threats on my life,” he said during an unrelated press conference — which he had opened with a boast about how much he takes the subway.
“As a result of me not taking the bribes to drop out, for the first time in my life I have to have armed security,” he said outside the 28th Street No. 6 train station.
“I’m in the subway every day,” he insisted, “but other places are not served by the subway.”
Sliwa’s campaign paid nearly $1,900 on subway fares between Feb. 24 and Sept. 29, amounting to around 650 swipes, according to the filings.
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The whopping cab tab came despite Sliwa declaring during the first mayoral debate last week that he’s avoided yellow taxis at all costs after being shot inside a medallion in an alleged attempted hit from the mob.
“I do try to avoid yellow cabs,” he said. “As you know, I was shot in the back of a yellow cab in 1992 by the Gottis and Gambinos, but I find my way around.
“If I have to, I Uber,” he added.
In comparison, Cuomo’s campaign hasn’t spent a dime on taking the subway or on any car services, the filings show.
Mamdani has expensed around $4,500 on Ubers and Lyfts, and another $2,300 on taxis, according to the CFB disclosures. But the socialist Queens assemblyman has been driven around by an NYPD detail in a city-owned car since receiving a series of credible threats during the Democratic primary.
Sliwa has been bemoaning the need for his around-the-clock security for weeks, blaming it on public pressure from anti-Mamdani forces, including the business community, the billionaire donor class, and even his longtime radio boss at WABC, John Catsimatidis, who has urged him to gracefully bow out of the race.
“These are lone-wolf crazies, but they are being spurred on by this constant rhetoric that I gotta drop out,” Sliwa claimed earlier this month.
But the lion’s share of his chauffeured rides — around $25,000 of the Uber spending — were logged before the unofficial kick-off of the general election over Labor Day Weekend.
The pressure for Sliwa to ditch his long-shot bid reached a fever pitch this week — but he has repeatedly refused to drop out.
The NYPD has said it has no record of any credible threats against Sliwa — unlike Mamdani, whose police detail was signed off on by Mayor Eric Adams back in the spring.
The post Infamous subway vigilante Curtis Sliwa blew $35K on Ubers, cabs during NYC mayoral campaign — over ‘threats on my life’ appeared first on New York Post.
