By Ray O’Hanlon
The grand marshal of the 2001 New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade has described as "totally false" a report in the Village Voice newspaper linking him to an ex-Playboy Bunny who has been accused of financial irregularities connected to a fund-raising campaign for a planned Catholic art museum in Manhattan.
"The article itself is totally false," Edward Malloy, who is president of the Building & Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, told the Echo.
He said that he was aware that many people had been interviewed about the museum plan and had spoken positively about it, but their views had not been carried in the report.
The Village Voice story, which will be followed by a second part published in this week’s issue, makes a number of allegations with regard to the financing of the planned National Museum of Catholic Art and History, which is currently taking shape in an abandoned Catholic school in East Harlem.
The lengthy report includes a diverse cast of characters, including Malloy, Donald Trump, Lee Iaccocca, Prince Albert of Monaco, Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione, former president Bill Clinton and even the pope.
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However, the central figure in the story and the moving force behind the museum plan is a woman named Christina Cox, described in the report as a "49-year-old, very blond former model, actress, stewardess, and beauty queen." Cox is also described in the story as an ex-Playboy Bunny and the story at one point states that Cox once described herself as a former "queen" of the New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
The report alleges that Malloy, who currently chairs the board of the planned museum, and Cox, have enjoyed an intimate relationship, at one point spending four days together at the luxury Mar-A-Lago Florida estate of billionaire developer Donald Trump in February of this year, only days before Malloy led the annual parade up Fifth Avenue.
The report also states that Malloy did not deny a sexual or romantic relationship with Cox when asked by the Village Voice although he (Malloy) confined his description of his relationship with Cox to being one of a "very, very good friend."
The Voice story ranges over a decade of large-scale fund-raising and contains numerous allegations of financial impropriety on Cox’s part. It also makes it clear that the Catholic archdiocese of New York and the Vatican have been eager to keep their distance from the museum project, while not condemning it outright.
Cox, according to report, met with Pope John Paul at the Vatican late last year and had the pontiff bless the written proposal for the museum. The report suggests that the pope was unaware of the controversy surrounding the project in New York, where, at one point, the archdiocese attempted unsuccessfully to have the word "Catholic" removed from the museum’s title but succeeded in having the name changed to the point that it would not be seen as Catholic Church museum but rather a museum for displaying and interpreting church art and history.
According to Joe Zwilling, spokesman for the New York Archdiocese, the museum rents space from the archdiocese in a now disused school building in East Harlem.
"Beyond that there is no formal relationship with the archdiocese," Zwilling said.
According to the Voice report, the planned museum’s financial difficulties were most evident in the early 1990s, shortly after Cox apparently came up with the idea of the facility following a "cathartic" visit to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
The financial turning point for the museum, according to the Voice, was the night in 1994 when Cox and another woman involved in the museum project met Malloy in a Manhattan hotel where he was attending an Irish-American dinner event.
"With Malloy as Cox’s long-awaited patron, the museum was on the precipice of becoming at least a legal — if not a physical — reality, the report stated.
According to Malloy, the museum’s physical reality is no longer a distant proposition.
"Their [Village Voice’s] statements on the financial conditions [of the museum] are totally false," Malloy said.
He added that the IRS had just recently extended the museum’s not-for-profit status for another five years.
Malloy blamed the allegations of financial irregularities in the report on "disgruntled" former employees and said that other "underlying issues" had driven the story.
He stated that statements by some people initially made to the Village Voice had been subsequently denied but those denials had not been carried in the report.
"There’s nothing you can do but keep going. I’m not going to get down to the level of their reporting practices," he said.
Malloy said that he was not presently planning on replying publicly or formally to the Village Voice report but added that he would likely write privately and directly to the museum’s friends and benefactors.
He said that the museum was now due to open in September. "They are pouring concrete up there today," he said.