
A one-time top aide to Michael Grimm, the Republican who resigned from Congress in January, is now helping the candidate trying to fill his shoes in Staten Island.
Nick Iacono, the press secretary for Mr. Grimm during his successful re-election bid last year, is volunteering on Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan’s campaign, a Donovan spokeswoman confirmed to the Observer. Mr. Donovan, a fellow Republican, praised Mr. Grimm’s brief tenure in Congress, even after the hot-headed pol was forced from office following a guilty plea to a federal tax evasion charge.
Mr. Iacono was one of the few staffers to not desert Mr. Grimm in 2014, when he was caught on camera threatening to throw a NY1 reporter off a balcony and later indicted on tax evasion charges. Mr. Iacono, a Staten Island native, attended the same high school as Mr. Donovan—Monsignor Farrell High School—and handled communications duties for Mr. Grimm in his congressional and campaign offices. Before working for Mr. Grimm, Mr. Iacono was a deputy political director on Republican Joseph Lhota’s mayoral campaign.
Mr. Iacono did not return a request for comment.
A special election for the 11th Congressional District, spanning all of Staten Island and portions of southern Brooklyn, is set for May 5. Mr. Donovan is facing Councilman Vincent Gentile, a Brooklyn Democrat.