Campaigns & Elections
This crisis PR flack reps Harvey Weinstein. Now his firm is helping Bruce Blakeman run for governor.
The Republican nominee’s campaign denies having hired Juda Engelmayer’s HeraldPR, but the firm is pitching reporters anyway.
Bruce Blakeman speaks at a state legislative GOP press conference in Albany on May 6 about lowering utility prices. Rebecca C. Lewis/City & State
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman recently brought on the PR firm founded and run by Juda Engelmayer. You may never have heard of him – but you’ve definitely heard of some of his most infamous clients.
Engelmayer has represented Harvey Weinstein in the court of public opinion since 2018. A New York Times profile of the crisis comms professional called him the “go-to guy among a particular subset of alleged fraudsters and predators,” thanks to the reputation he gained as Weinstein’s flack.
Since then, Engelmayer’s client list has grown to include the likes of Sean “Diddy” Combs, fake heiress Anna Delvey and Nicole Daedone, convicted of trying to use forced labor in a company likened to a sex cult. More locally, he also represented Broadway Stages, a Brooklyn-based film production company at the heart of the opposition to a major street safety redesign in Greenpoint. “They are not all major-crazy people,” Engelmayer once told The Times of London of his clients. “Some are just low-key crazy.”
Politico New York reported last month that Blakeman had tapped Engelmayer’s firm HeraldPR to help with his campaign for governor.
It’s also not the first time Blakeman has turned to PR guru – City & State quoted Engelmayer as a campaign strategist working on Blakeman’s 2021 bid for Nassau County executive.
Madison Spanodemos, a spokesperson for Blakeman, said the campaign had not “retained” or “hired” HeraldPR. Asked about pitches sent to City & State from HeraldPR consultant Ezra Hermann, who described himself as “retained” by Blakeman, Spanodemos reiterated that no money has exchanged hands. She didn’t deny Hermann has communicated with reporters about Blakeman, but said he doesn’t speak for the campaign. "We’re always glad to have people helping amplify Bruce Blakeman’s message, especially supporters with media relationships and communications experience,” she said.
Despite denying the firm was hired, Spanodemos nonetheless sent City & State a statement attacking Hochul for her own tenuous fiscal connections to Weinstein. “Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul had no problem accepting $50,000 in political contributions from Harvey Weinstein while they were running together on the Cuomo-Hochul ticket,” she said. “We’re not going to take political hypocrisy lessons from allies of an administration that benefited from Weinstein’s money.”
Cuomo ultimately donated the money Weinstein and his company gave to his 2018 campaign to charity.