The group first received a $10,000 check from Capalino. That same day, identical checks arrived from two of the lobbyist’s deep-pocketed clients, RAL Development and Cipriani USA, for a total of $30,000.

And the very next day, Capalino was on the phone with the man himself — Mayor de Blasio.

Not bad for a guy who, as a lobbyist doing business with the city, is barred from giving more than $400 to a candidate per election.

The mayor’s website and Capalino insist the phone chat concerned a proposed (and ultimately failed) helicopter ban, and Capalino says donations to the mayor’s cause never came up.

Whether anything else came up remains a mystery as City Hall refuses to say whether notes of these lobbying chats exist.

[. . .]

The other key loophole Capalino has tapped into is bundling. Though individuals can’t give more than $4,950, they can collect piles of checks from others and present them to a candidate in a bundle.

Between October and December, Capalino bundled $44,940 for the mayor’s 2017 reelection bid. Donors included some of his clients.

An executive of Bauhouse Group, which needs City Hall support for a huge Upper East Side tower the neighborhood opposes, gave $4,950. Michael Stern, CEO of JDS Development, wrote five checks in one day totaling $4,950. Capalino has lobbied for city approval of a JDS residential tower that would be the tallest in Brooklyn at 1,066 feet.

That’s how much a company that’s been accused of ignoring workers’ rights sent to de Blasio’s campaign just five days after their paid lobbyist snagged a coveted phone chat with Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen.

WeWork, a company that provides office space across the city, paid lobbyist Global Strategy Group Jan. 1 to press the mayor on unspecified “procurement” issues, records show.

Global’s Jon Silvan got right to work, and on Jan. 6 he was able to get the extremely busy Glen, who is running de Blasio’s much-touted affordable housing program, to take his call, the mayor’s office confirmed Saturday.

During the call, Silvan pitched “future projects” WeWork wants to do with the city.

Two days later, on Jan. 8, WeWork Vice President Arana Hankin began collecting 19 checks totaling $68,750 for de Blasio’s 2017 reelection bid.

[. . .]

Ongoing probes of de Blasio’s fund-raising tactics are focused on multiple issues, including whether any of his donors got anything in return for raising or donating big bucks to the mayor.

On Friday, de Blasio spokesman Austin Finan confirmed the chat between WeWork’s lobbyist and Glen and said it “was held to discuss potential future projects.” He declined to discuss the bundled checks.

Hizzoner hinted at the federal and criminal probes buzzing around his and his allies fundraising efforts and stood by his belief that the investigations are purely political in nature.

“Now, brothers and sisters, guess what, when you do something different, opposition emerges,” de Blasio told a packed house at the National Action Network’s Harlem headqauarters. “The voices of the status quo find many, many ways to undermine progress, to stand in the way of progress, but we will not be held back.

“We’ll keep moving forward and I need your help to do that,” he added.

[. . .]

Don Peebles, whose real estate company owned a building they later got city approval to turn into condos, told DNAinfo New York that in March 2014 he received a call from the mayor asking him to contribute the money to the nonprofit, now called the Campaign for One New York.

Federal and state investigators are probing whether the nonprofit illegally raised funds and if contributors got favors from the city in exchange for their donation.

“He asked me for a specific dollar amount,” Peebles, who’s a possible 2017 mayoral candidate, said during an interview in his Fifth Avenue offices Monday.

Even though he believed universal pre-K was important and wanted to support the cause, Peebles, a past de Blasio fundraiser, said he was wary about the call.

“It’s hard for a business person who has business interests in New York City to tell the mayor no, especially real estate developers,” Peebles said.

[. . .]

The developer isn’t the only person de Blasio hit up for money.

One person in the real estate industry who Peebles introduced to de Blasio for fundraising purposes, but who declined to be interviewed because they have business before the city, called Peebles after de Blasio asked for $50,000 for his effort to win back the Senate.