NEW YORK — Former New York City Buildings Commissioner Eric Ulrich spent the summer in the difficult position of waiting to get arrested. So he wrote a children’s book.
But he’s clearly got the justice system on his mind.
“If Pets Could Vote…” which Ulrich self-published this week, imagines a world where dogs are judges — and the jury.
“How cute would it be to see 12 little fluffy canines sitting in the court room? Surely, they would give shelter dogs a second chance,” he wrote. And the parakeet president? “Polly would pardon all her feathered friends and set them free from their cages.”
Ulrich may be facing a less friendly version of the court this month.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged him under a sealed indictment, The New York Times first reported. He’s expected to be accused of accepting a discounted apartment, and couch, from a real estate developer who had business before the city. The indictment is also expected to tie Ulrich to organized crime, likely connected with illegal gambling.
Ulrich plans to fight the charges, but said he couldn’t get specific yet.
“Neither me nor my attorney have seen or read the indictment. So I'm going to decline to comment until I've actually read the indictment and know what it's about,” he said in an interview with POLITICO on Friday.
But Ulrich, who resigned from Mayor Eric Adams’ administration in November after his phone was seized by Bragg’s office, has not been happy about details of the case leaking to the Times.
“I'm disappointed that the Manhattan DA's office has decided to play this out in the press. It's extremely unprofessional for a prosecutor's office to be run this way,” Ulrich, a Republican, said. “But notwithstanding that, I'm not going to allow any of this smear and innuendo to deter me from living out my life in a positive, healthy way. Which is why I decided to spend my summer writing this children's book.”
Bragg spokesperson Danielle Filson said, “We will continue to decline to comment.”
Ulrich also denied that the “shelter dog” in the book was a stand-in for himself: “No, no no."
The message, he said, “is the humane treatment of animals. Shelter dogs shouldn’t be put to sleep. Birds don’t belong in cages. God gave them wings to fly.”
Ulrich has a 10-year-old daughter, and he said the picture book is for three to eight year olds.
But any New Yorker could appreciate the chameleon city councilmember, sitting in a tree in front of New York City Hall, that is portrayed.
“It can wiggle its way out of anything and change colors to match their surroundings,” Ulrich wrote, after serving for 13 years in the body before joining the Adams administration.
“That was a dig for sure,” he said Friday. “That had less to do with the humane treatment of animals and more about my former colleagues.”
Ulrich is expected to face indictment this month, but he’s taking care not to get in any more legal trouble in the meantime.
“There was a line I had to take out: ‘Turtle power’ is trademarked by Viacom because they own the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," he noted.
