By Bill Parry
Bishop Mitchell Taylor, the co-founder and CEO of Urban Upbound, has been cleared in an NYPD probe into claims he extorted a Long Island City hotelier.
He was investigated by the Major Case Squad, which looked into allegations that he tried to strong-arm the owner of a Long Island City hotel into hiring unemployed Queensbridge Houses residents last August. The investigation is officially closed, according to the NYPD.
“The lead detective came to me on Jan. 14 and told me that after a full investigation the allegations were unfounded,” Taylor said. “Unfounded as in nothing happened. In their minds it never happened. That is very different than unsubstantiated, that means it can’t be proved.”
Taylor admits he made a mistake by engaging in an argument with Howard Johnson-Mayflower Hotel owner Xiao Zhuang Ge after a 40-minute meeting about some promised jobs went badly.
“He stormed out of the meeting and when I was leaving, he began shouting at me in the lobby,” Taylor said. “I should have know better and just kept walking.”
What followed was an altercation that was caught on the hotel’s security camera that showed Taylor and Xiao shouting at each other. While a dozen construction workers gathered around, a hotel worker intervened. Taylor shoved Qijun Zhu into a window and then the altercation spilled into a parking lot out front.
“It was scary, I was actually afraid for my life,” Taylor said. As I stumbled over construction debris, I picked up a piece of wood and started swinging in self-defense. When I realized it was a pick ax I, dropped it immediately.”
Taylor blames himself for not practicing what he preaches as the senior pastor at the Center of Hope International in Long Island City.
“I don’t feel proud of my actions because I believe in non-violence having grown up in that era. It was very embarrassing, but I learned some lessons. And it’s very important to remember I was there to get jobs for the people of Queensbridge that has the highest unemployment rates in Queens at 17 percent.”
Taylor has spent the last 30 years connecting local talent with businesses through Urban Upbound, a Queensbridge-based non-profit whose mission is to expand economic opportunities for residents of public housing and other low-income New Yorkers.
Taylor went to the hotel, located across from the Queensbridge Houses at 38-61 12th St., for a face-to-face meeting with Ge who, Taylor said, had made a verbal agreement to hire local workers for nearly 40 jobs at the new hotel.
Following the August incident, the hotel’s operations manager, George Fragoulis, said, “This guy just stepped on a land mine. He’s a 20th century version of Jimmy Hoffa. I know I’m right having been around law enforcement long enough. You don’t use thuggery around me.”
Fragoulis, a former aide to Mayor Rudy Giuliani, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
“I can’t afford to file a libel or defamation suit,” Taylor said. “This whole episode cost my organization thousands of dollars because the Mayor’s Office of City Contracts had to hold everything up while the investigation continued and funders have lost confidence.”
Taylor, a member of the NYPD’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, added that there’s another lesson. “Don’t believe the video, it doesn’t tell the whole story,” he said.
Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparry@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4538.
