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Cast away! I’m finally free — sort of — after accepting my award!

Scandal! Beep accepts our check, but says auction was a fake!
Mark Zustovich

PONTE VEDRA, FLA. — There is only one thing better than being named “Editor of the Year” by a major national newspaper trade association.

Getting the cast off my broken ankle!

Not to sound ungrateful to the Suburban Newspapers of America for naming me “Editor of the Year” and calling me “remarkable,” “uniquely talented” and “a passable harmonica player,” but it wasn’t too much fun spending four days in this beautiful north Florida resort walking around on crutches, not even getting spitting distance from the mighty Atlantic, and feeling a sharp pain in my leg whenever a new storm system barreled through (which happens every 15 minutes in Florida).

Yes, my acceptance speech killed (don’t believe me? You’ll find it on YouTube by searching, what else?, “editor of the year,” or at BrooklynPaper.com), but I couldn’t help feeling that I was getting sympathy laughs.

On my return, I headed straight to Lutheran Medical Center for my appointment with Dr. Tom Lyons and the ceremonial throwing out of my second cast. Lyons moved my still-sore ankle around gingerly, like Dorothy loosening up the Tin Man’s joints and, hearing no yelps from my end, told me I was ready for a walking brace. I liked the sound of that until I saw the brace itself — it looks like something Jean-Paul Gaultier would have come up with if he’d been asked to design footware for Frankenstein.

It’s a good thing they don’t give journalism awards for good looks. (They don’t, you know.)

• • •

Borough President Markowitz accepted our large ceremonial check for $500 for his “Camp Brooklyn” charity — but then stabbed me right in the back!

Seconds after last Tuesday’s ceremony, Markowitz made the outlandish, outrageous and just plain out-there claim that the $500 I raised in the now-legendary eBay auction of my ankle cast was the result of fraud.

As we reported two weeks ago (exclusively, I might add!), Councilman Bill DeBlasio won the cast after a frenzied bidding war with fellow Councilman Simcha Felder. But Markowitz questioned our report. And in doing so, he has set back Markowitz-Kuntzman relations at least four years.

“Jamie [Markowitz, the Beep’s wife] was watching that ‘auction’ the entire way and she said all the bidders were you!” Markowitz said. “You kept bidding to drive up the price!”

Markowitz said his wife — “an eBay expert,” he said — made the conclusion based on the fact that many of the bidders in my historic auction were first-time auction participants.

“She said it’s clear that you had set up fake bidding names. You’re ‘billdeblasio’ and ‘simchafelder.’”

Now, of course Borough President Markowitz and I have had some high-profile differences of opinions over the years — Atlantic Yards, Hillary Clinton and the cheesecake at Junior’s — but never has he had the temerity to accuse me of a) outright fraud and b) being the kind of person who uses the word “temerity” in a column (though, clearly, I am).

But I’m a journalist first and a human being second (actually, make that sixth), so I felt honor-bound to check out the substance of Markowitz’s allegation. First, I grilled myself on the subject.

The Brooklyn Ankle: Kuntzman, did you create fake identities on eBay?

Kuntzman: Are you on crack?

TBA: Answer the question.

Kuntzman: What was the question again? I’m on crack.

TBA: Did you create fake identities on eBay?

Kuntzman: No.

Next, I asked DeBlasio’s office if “billdeblasio” was actually Bill DeBlasio.

“Of course it was him,” said the councilman’s spokeswoman, Jean Weinberg. “Not only did he absolutely bid — and win — but the cast has been put on a pedestal in a prominent place in our office.”

Still, given my commitment to good journalism, I asked Markowitz one more time whether he was really accusing me of fraud. Finally, at the end of this trying day, I received this e-mail from Markowitz:

“OK. OK. Bill bought your cast!!!!!!!!” he wrote.

Then he dropped this bombshell: “PS: We bid for it, too!”

A-ha!

Double fantasy: Gersh holds his Editor of the Year award and the ankle cast that has finally come off after six weeks.
The Brooklyn Paper / Mike McLaughlin

Despite the controversy, The Brooklyn Paper is urging readers to help send a child to camp this summer. For information on Markowitz’s “Camp Brooklyn” charity, go to www.brooklyn-usa.org/Pages/camp%20brooklyn.htm.