NYC Deputy Mayor Was Arrested in DC before he Quit

NEW YORK (AP) — The deputy mayor with authority over New York City's police department, fire department and emergency response coordination was arrested on a domestic violence charge shortly before he resigned last month.

Stephen Goldsmith, then-deputy mayor for operations, shoved his wife into a kitchen counter, threw a phone hard enough to break it and grabbed her when she threatened him and then said she was calling police, according to a Washington, D.C., police report. The details of the July 30 altercation were first reported in the New York Post on Thursday.

"I should have put a bullet through you years ago," Margaret Goldsmith told her husband before the argument got physical, the police report said. After he shoved her, she told him: "(You're) not going to do this to me again, I'm calling the police," according to the report, which said she escaped his grasp and called police from another room.

Margaret Goldsmith declined medical attention at the scene and later denied the police account. Prosecutors haven't pursued charges.

"Although Margaret under oath has affirmed the absence of violence and my actual innocence, I offered my resignation in order not to be a distraction to the mayor and his important agenda for the city," Stephen Goldsmith said in a statement Thursday jointly issued with his wife.

"There has never been any kind of domestic assault or violence in our marriage," his wife said in the statement. "The police report is a summary of what discussions occurred that evening in our home, and those comments have been misconstrued as well as taken out of context."

Marc LaVorgna, spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said "it was clear to the mayor and Mr. Goldsmith that he could no longer serve at City Hall, regardless of his guilt or innocence." LaVorgna also said the mayor's office had "nothing to add to Mrs. Goldsmith's account of the incident."

A former Indianapolis mayor who made his name with a focus on efficiency innovations and cost-cutting, Goldsmith served as one of the city's six deputy mayors for 14 months before his resignation was announced in early August. In the role, he held authority over law enforcement agencies, the budget office, the city's technology efforts, the Sanitation Department and the Department of Environmental Protection.

Goldsmith took heat for the city's bungled performance during a Dec. 26 blizzard that paralyzed the city for days and damaged Bloomberg's reputation as a no-nonsense manager. He apologized to elected leaders for failures including not briefing the mayor adequately at the start of the storm.

On Thursday, city officials called on the mayor to disclose what members of his administration knew about the arrest before it became public.

"The mayor and his staff should give a full accounting of what they knew and when they knew it," Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said in a statement. "'No comment' is not an acceptable response. The deputy mayor for operations isn't just another aide — the position is directly responsible for oversight of the NYPD and other law enforcement agencies that routinely confront the issue of domestic violence."

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio — like Stringer considered a probable mayoral candidate in 2013 — also called for more information.

"While Deputy Mayor Goldsmith's resignation was more than appropriate given the circumstances, New Yorkers deserve a full airing of the facts known to the administration," he said.

When the resignation was announced, Goldsmith said in a statement that he had "received important overtures" in the area of infrastructure finance, and the move would "provide me, at age 64, with more flexibility for me and my family and a secure foundation for our future."