d consider such activity to be a willful and knowing violation of the law. 

3 Inside the mailers, Patterson-Howard endorsed five candidates for comptroller, city council and city judge.

Still, the federal rebuke is the latest black eye for Patterson-Howard, who recently came under fire when her hand-picked deputy police commissioner, Jennifer Lackard, was charged with attempted murder for allegedly chaperoning her gang-banging son to a botched drive-by shooting outside a Bronx courthouse.

James Lackard, 47, the deputy commissioner's drug-peddling, ex-con husband who was also allegedly in the car during the drive-by, was on the run from police before turning himself in a few days after the shooting, according to police.

Patterson-Howard - who made history in 2019 as the first woman elected mayor in Mount Vernon - had hired Lackard in 2020 to lead the police department's Wellness Unit, a $125,000-a-year job reportedly created for her, despite her having no real law-enforcement experience.

The mayor has defended the hire, insisting Lackard passed a  rigorous background check. 



Patterson-Howard did not respond to The Post's request for comment.

Additional reporting by Mark Lungariello