Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s public apology for “stop-and-frisk” wasn’t the first time he’s flip-flopped on the controversial crime-fighting program, The Post has learned.
Former Gov. David Paterson told The Post Monday that Bloomberg — who’s weighing a Democratic bid for the White House — privately expressed regret to him over stop-and-frisk during a pair of conversations, including one that took place even before a judge ruled against the program and while Bloomberg was still mayor.
Bloomberg first confided his contrition during an October 2012 ceremony in Manhattan that renamed the former Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel after the late Gov. Hugh Carey, Paterson said.
“I told him that the number of searches were eight times higher than they were under [predecessor Mayor] Rudy Giuliani,” Paterson said. “He said he regretted it. He said stop-and-frisk was over-used, abused.”
Bloomberg reiterated his comments during another conversation in 2015 at a governmental or charity event, Paterson added.
“Bloomberg told me he had regrets on two occasions,” Paterson said.
“He felt that way a number of years ago.”
The NYPD’s use of stop-and-frisk was ruled unconstitutional in August 2013 by then-Manhattan federal Judge Shira Scheindlin, who said cops disproportionately used it against blacks and Latinos.
Bloomberg blasted Scheindlin in the wake of her decision, saying, “What does she know about policing? Absolutely zero.”
Bloomberg, who left office at the end of 2013, also continued defending the stop-and-frisk as recently as January, when he told an audience at the US Naval Academy that it had cut the city’s murder rate in half during his administration.
But he made an abrupt about-face and apologized on Sunday during a speech at Brooklyn’s Christian Cultural Center, one of the city’s largest black churches.
“Today, I want you to know that I realize back then I was wrong, and I am sorry,” he said.
Paterson, who became New York’s first black governor when then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned amid a hooker scandal, said he kept his conversations with Bloomberg secret because “there was a sanctity I had with him and legislative leaders.”
“It was a private conversation,” he said.
Paterson also said he never asked Bloomberg to go public with his regrets, saying, “Honestly, I just never thought about it.”
Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser declined to comment.
Additional reporting by Bruce Golding