Frozen in January, Funded by July: NYC Council Hands the Terror-Merch Nonprofit Another $85K.
In January 2026, Speaker Julie Menin (D) said the New York City Council had “zero tolerance” and publicly blocked $80,000 headed to the Muslim American Society, after vendors at its Brooklyn youth-center fundraiser hawked keychains, stickers and pins backing Hamas, Hezbollah and the PFLP.
By July 1, 2026, the freeze had thawed. Two Democratic council members — Kayla Santosuosso (D) and Alexa Avilés (D) — had steered a fresh $85,000 in taxpayer discretionary funds to the same nonprofit in the newly adopted budget. The Council’s own lawyers had reviewed the group and restored the money.
This is not the January scandal. It is the July follow-up: the same organization, whose executives sit on Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D)’s transition team, funded again after a public promise to freeze it. What is documented and what is disputed are two different things — and this page keeps them apart. The receipts, and the names, are below.
- $85Knewfresh discretionary award to the Muslim American Society in the FY2027 budget that began July 1, 2026 — NY Post / Council records
- $265Kpriorcumulative Council funding to MAS-NY across FY2023–FY2025 under the prior speaker — NY Post (January 2026)
- ~$350Ktotalat least, in taxpayer discretionary funds steered to MAS-NY since FY2023 — Civic Intelligence tally of Council records
- $80Kunfrozenthe amount Speaker Menin publicly 'blocked' in January, then restored after a Council counsel review — NY Post
The dollars are not in dispute. In the FY2027 expense budget — the roughly $125.8 billion spending plan Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) and Speaker Julie Menin (D) finalized on June 30 and which took effect July 1, 2026 — the Muslim American Society of New York was awarded $85,000 in discretionary “member item” funds. According to the New York Post, the money came from two Brooklyn Democrats: Kayla Santosuosso (D), who represents Bay Ridge and parts of southern Brooklyn, put in $70,000; and Alexa Avilés (D), of Red Hook and Sunset Park, added $15,000.
What makes it a story is not the size of the grant but its history. This is the same nonprofit whose January fundraiser triggered a national controversy and a public funding freeze from the Council’s own leadership. Six months later, the same body wrote it a new check. The New York Post broke the follow-up as an exclusive on the morning of July 4.
Muslim group that hawked Hamas and other terror trinkets scores $85K taxpayer handout via NYC Council
The amount: $85,000 in FY2027 discretionary member-item funds, in the budget adopted June 30 and effective July 1, 2026.
The split: $70,000 from Council Member Santosuosso (D) and $15,000 from Council Member Avilés (D) — both Brooklyn Democrats.
The recipient: the Muslim American Society of New York (Brooklyn / Staten Island), which reported roughly $982,000 in net assets in 2024 — not a hand-to-mouth charity.
The context: the same group Speaker Menin’s office publicly moved to freeze in January, now funded again after a Council counsel review.
The trouble began on January 18, 2026, at a fundraiser billed as “Thrift4Sudan” (the merchandise later surfaced under a “Thrift4Gaza” banner as well) inside the MAS youth center at 1933 Bath Avenue in Bath Beach, Brooklyn. According to reporting first published by The Times of Israel and then by the New York Post, vendors at the event sold keychains, stickers, pins and other tchotchkes celebrating Hamas, Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — all designated foreign terrorist organizations. Some items depicted slain terror leaders such as Hassan Nasrallah and Yahya Sinwar; others carried slogans including “Let’s go bomb Tel Aviv” and “Death to the IDF.” The account traces to a video posted briefly to Instagram, then deleted.
That the merchandise was sold at a MAS event is documented. What remains contested is the leap from the merchandise to the organization. Critics argue MAS is, in Council Member Inna Vernikov (R)’s words, a group that “appears to” support designated terror organizations. MAS and the Council’s lawyers reject that characterization. This page keeps those two claims apart: the sale is a fact; the affiliation is an allegation.
“Individual members get to decide what groups get their discretionary dollars, but funding nonprofits that appear to flat out support designated terrorist organizations and spread radical, Jew-hating propaganda is far beyond the pale and potentially illegal.”
Council Member Inna Vernikov (R-Brooklyn) · to the New York Post · July 2026
When the January reporting landed, Speaker Julie Menin (D) — the Council’s first Jewish speaker — reacted with public alarm. She announced that roughly $80,000 in pending funds to MAS would be blocked while city lawyers investigated, and declared that the Council had “zero tolerance for violations of our standards.” It read, at the time, like an off-ramp.
It was not. Over the spring, the Council’s Office of the General Counsel reviewed the matter and, in the words of Council spokesman Yoav Gonen, “found no affiliation” between the nonprofit and the vendor “that sold the controversial merchandise.” MAS, Gonen said, committed in writing to enhanced screening and prevention protocols for future vendors using its space, and on that basis the funding was restored. The office that froze the money was, in effect, overruled by the office that vets it — and the disputed $80,000 flowed after all, alongside the new $85,000 award.
“The City Council has zero tolerance for violations of our standards.”
Speaker Julie Menin (D) · January 2026, announcing the initial funding freeze
Jan. 18, 2026: terror-group merchandise sold at a MAS youth-center fundraiser in Brooklyn.
January 2026: Speaker Menin announces a freeze of ~$80,000 pending a city-lawyer investigation; vows “zero tolerance.”
Spring 2026: the Council’s Office of the General Counsel “found no affiliation” with the vendor; MAS pledges enhanced screening; funding restored.
July 1, 2026: the FY2027 budget takes effect carrying a fresh $85,000 for MAS.
The $85,000 is the newest layer, not the whole structure. The January reporting laid out a prior $265,000 in Council discretionary funding that MAS-NY collected across fiscal years 2023 through 2025, under then-Speaker Adrienne Adams (D). Add the new award to the old total, and the running tab of taxpayer discretionary money steered to this single nonprofit reaches at least roughly $350,000 since FY2023. Because the once-frozen $80,000 was ultimately restored rather than clawed back, none of it nets out.
There is an adjacent thread worth naming. Council Member Kayla Santosuosso (D), the $70,000 funder, is the former deputy director of the Bay Ridge–based Arab American Association of New York — an organization that itself drew $124,500 in Council funds this fiscal year, including $5,000 from Santosuosso’s own discretionary pot. Alexa Avilés (D), the other funder, is a repeat backer: she also gave MAS $10,000 during the earlier $265,000 era. None of that is illegal on its face — discretionary funding to district nonprofits is how the Council works — but it is the map of who kept the money moving.
The grant does not sit in isolation from City Hall. MAS-NY’s executive director, Sherif Ahmed, and the youth center’s political director, Hannah Towfeik, both served on the transition team that Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) — sworn in January 1, 2026 as the city’s first Muslim mayor — used to staff his administration. A separate MAS-NY figure, Abdullah Akl, who grew up at the Bath Avenue youth center, also organizes for the anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime. Those personnel ties are documented; the mayor gave no direct response in the July 4 report.
The transition-team seats matter because they answer the “why does this keep happening” question with proximity rather than conspiracy: the people who run the funded nonprofit are inside the mayoral apparatus that shapes the city’s spending priorities. Council Member Inna Vernikov (R), the most vocal critic on the record, argued the members who wrote the checks owe the public an explanation.
“And if this was some kind of an alleged hiccup, did MAS apologize and condemn Hamas? No. These members must explain to the public why their taxpayer dollars should be given to America-hating jihadis, rather than so many other groups who have a legitimate purpose and actual needs.”
Council Member Inna Vernikov (R-Brooklyn) · to the New York Post · July 2026
It is worth being precise about what this record does and does not establish, because a story like this invites overreach in both directions. What is documented: terror-group merchandise was sold at a MAS event; the Council funded MAS with $265,000 previously and $85,000 now; and MAS executives sit on the mayor’s transition team. What is disputed — and unresolved by any court or federal agency — is whether MAS itself is affiliated with the vendor or with the terror groups whose goods were sold. The Council’s Office of the General Counsel said no. Critics say the review was toothless.
There is no criminal case here, and no external finding of a terror tie. What there is, indisputably, is a public decision by named, elected Democrats to restore and expand taxpayer funding to a nonprofit six months after its youth center hosted a fundraiser stocked with pro-terror merchandise — a decision voters in those districts are entitled to weigh with their eyes open.
This should've been reported to the federal government. The office of general counsel within city council is useless. I am very familiar with that group and shame on city council for giving funds to a group that is allegedly tied to Hamas.
In January, NYC Council leadership froze $80,000 and vowed “zero tolerance” after terror-group merchandise turned up at a Muslim American Society fundraiser. By July 1, the Council had restored that money and added a fresh $85,000 — steered by two Brooklyn Democrats, cleared by the Council’s own lawyers.
The affiliation between the group and the merchandise is genuinely contested; the Council’s counsel “found no affiliation.” The spending is not contested at all. At least ~$350,000 in taxpayer discretionary funds has now flowed to MAS-NY since FY2023 — and its executives help staff the mayor who signs the budget.
