Espaillat senior adviser made racist and Islamophobic comments about congressional challenger

A former senior adviser for Rep. Adriano Espaillat has made racist comments about his primary challenger Darializa Avila Chevalier in Spanish-language media, City & State has learned.

Rusking Pimentel, who is currently on unpaid leave from Espaillat’s congressional office, accused Avila Chevalier, who identifies as Afro-Dominican and Muslim, of working with Mayor Zohran Mamdani to replace Dominicans in Washington Heights with Muslims and Haitians.

“Mamdani, who is also Muslim, his goal is to change the demography of Washington Heights, that Washington Heights no longer be a bastion of the Dominican community, that it rather become a bastion of the Haitian, Muslim community allied to him,” Pimentel said in Spanish on the “Entre Líneas” podcast.

“And for Darializa Chevalier, who is the candidate running against Adriano, Washington Heights cannot continue to be Dominican,” he added. “For them, Washington Heights must follow the same pattern in Brooklyn. That is because since Haitians are converting to Islam in high numbers, they must be moved to the Dominican district.”

In another interview, with the YouTube channel “Las Exclusivas de José Peguero,” Pimentel cast suspicions on Avila Chevalier’s Dominican identity. “She came from Florida, a young woman that identifies as an Afro-Latina, and she says that supposedly she has Dominican parents, and that now says she wants the opportunity to represent this community,” he said.

Avila Chevalier has been brigaded with anti-Haitian racism in the final weeks of the campaign, as anonymous Espaillat fans have also inundated Avila Chevalier’s social media posts with comments accusing her of being Haitian.

At a press conference on Monday, Mamdani denounced the racist comments directed at Avila Chevalier. “One thing I do want to make clear that I find unacceptable in our city is the attempt to use the term ‘Haitian’ as a slur,” he said. “The trafficking in anti-Black sentiment and narratives that we have seen specifically in NY-13 when it comes to Darializa Avila Chevalier is something that I cannot stand here and say is in line with the values of our city.”

Avila Chevalier also addressed the racist attacks in a statement. “In the final days of this campaign, I have been hit with attacks that use ‘Haitian’ as a slur,” she said. “A coordinated wave of Islamophobia. Lies about my identity, my faith, and my family. … The smear campaign against me is not politics. That’s racism dressed up and unleashed by my opponent because he has nothing else left.”

Pimentel, who did not respond to a request for comment, is a longtime operator within New York’s Dominican political scene. He served as state Sen. Luis Sepúlveda’s communications director and senior adviser until September 2024, when he joined Espaillat’s congressional office as senior adviser. As late as March 31, he was still listed on Legistorm as a senior adviser in the office.

A spokesperson for Espaillat’s campaign said Pimentel was neither an official nor unofficial surrogate for the campaign. “He is on unpaid leave. The Congressman strongly disavows the comments made on the podcast,” the spokesperson said. 

On Monday, Espaillat told his supporters not to question Avila Chevalier’s Dominican heritage. “She’s Dominican, she’s Dominican,” he told The City Reporter’s Claudia Irizarry Aponte. “I condemn the aggressive – the campaign has been very aggressive. I ask for people to tone it down.”

State Sen. Gustavo Rivera, who before redistricting, represented a Bronx district with the largest number of Dominicans outside of the Dominican Republic, told City & State that there is a widespread network of informal media outlets that cater to the Dominican community, which have spread similar attacks on Avila Chevalier.

“There's a whole subculture, if you will, of under-the-radar communications, which happened here, communications through WhatsApp, through Facebook, through Instagram, which is where a lot of this stuff is being shared,” he said. “So this is one interview, but this is not the only one (Pimentel) did.”

Rivera compared Pimentel’s comments to the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory – “in which white supremacists argue that the Jews are trying to erase the white race” – and said that while most Dominicans will reject such racist fear-mongering, the attacks on Avila Chevalier are likely to inflame and mobilize a small subset of racist voters in the community.

The Dominican Republic and Haiti share a long border on the same Caribbean island, and there has long been tension between the two countries. In 2018, Avila Chevalier tweeted that if the Dominican Republic and Haiti had not been separate, “we could have had a free and Black and unified Quisqueya,” using a Taíno term for the island  – a tweet which has fueled Dominicans’ fears of being subsumed into Haiti.

Rivera has declined to endorse either Espaillat or Avila Chevalier in the race, but was critical of the tone of the primary in its final days.

“What's particularly concerning is that in a race like this that is going to be so close, that is going to be a toss-up,this is the type of thing that could potentially make a difference,” he said about the criticism of Avila Chevalier. “There are not a lot of folks, thankfully, but I do think that there's some folks who will be, unfortunately, prompted to participate now as a response to what they see as this attack from this person, which is, again, just an Islamophobic and racist attack that is absolutely not true.”