Who is Christopher Bastardi, the latest player in the saga of Jersey Freedom, a secretive and controversial independent expenditure group that poured money into the 2023 State Senate campaign of phantom candidate Giuseppe Costanzo and others?
Here are six things you should know about him:
1. Bastardi is a New York public relations man who spent six years as vice president and head of strategy & crisis for Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis, the firm headed by PR legend Ken Sunshine, a former chief of staff to Mayor David Dinkins.
2. He chose to go there in November 2017, after the firm had already begun representing convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein and/or Weinstein’s production company. Sunshine had been accused of smearing Weinstein’s accuser in a 2015 sexual assault allegation and releasing her name to the public.
3. Bastardi helped Jussie Smollett through charges that the singer/actor staged a fake hate crime against himself and made a false report to the Chicago police. “Jussie is the victim here,” Bastardi said in a statement.
4. Before joining Sunshine, Bastardi spent over seven years at Edelman, one of the world’s largest public relations firms. He also spent over three years as a New York State Senate staffer and seventeen months at another PR firm, The TASC Group.
5. Bastardi is now a partner at BARO Strategies, a New York-based firm he founded with Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky.
6. Bastardi’s check was used to open the Jersey Freedom bank account. His $50 check inadvertently became public after a Superior Court Judge froze the independent expenditure account after finding suspicious activity.