NYC mayor candidate Zohran Mamdani mum on ex-staffer who was a child-sex predator

Outspoken socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani usually has a lot to say – but not when it comes to his former campaign spokesman who served three months in jail for soliciting sex from a minor.Matthew Thomas was busted in 2014 after soliciting a 16-year-old boy for a gay-sex threesome with Daniel Simmons, a former deputy attorney general in Delaware.Thomas was then known as Matthew Coogan but legally changed his name in 2017, court records show.Mamdani, a Queens state assemblyman, hired Thomas — a one-time official for the borough’s branch of the Democrat Socialists of America who has also been an outspoken critic of Israel — as comms director for his successful 2020 Assembly race.“I didn’t know about this before I hired him,” Mamdani told The Post in 2023 when it first revealed Thomas’ seedy past.Andrew Epstein, Mamdani’s current campaign spokesman, said Thomas, 34, hasn’t worked for Mamdani since the 2020 campaign and declined to comment further.“Mamdani is a radical socialist who would be an absolute disaster for our city — his policies belong in a Marxist fantasy, not on the streets of New York,” said Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens).

“The fact that he hired someone convicted of soliciting minors without even checking his background shows he’s not just unfit to lead — he’s downright dangerous and lazy.”Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán, another Queens socialist, also employed Thomas as a researcher for her unsuccessful 2019 race for Queens district attorney.Both she and Mamdani paid Thomas more than $22,000 for his services. Thomas was charged with two counts of sexual solicitation of a child and conspiracy but managed to escape rape charges because Delaware law permits sex with 16-year-olds if you are under the age of 30, Delaware Online reported.Thomas, who now lives in Delaware, could not be reached for comment.Simmons was a top deputy to Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, ex-President Joe Biden’s son and one-t...