NYC dog mayor race finalist’s owner reveals ‘death threats’ that forced her to drop out of $2m contest

A finalist in the multimillion-dollar race for New York City mayor dropped out because of a slew of extremely vulgar and threatening “negative comments.”

Oliva Caputo, 28, entered the NYC Dog Mayor race with her two-year-old Shih Tzu Enzo in the hopes that her beloved pup would participate in his very first competition, but just one day before the final voting she decided to withdraw him from.

The flags were raised on Saturday night when Caputo discovered what she described as something like a “public Telegram group” – a crypto community that led voters to choose the winner: Enzo’s contest, Bertram the Pomeranian.

On Sunday, she took to Enzo’s Instagram, which has more than 92,000 followers, and announced that he was “bowing out” over the crypto group that “doesn’t care about the Dog Mayor of NYC” with “their worthless sh**coin.” .’

But that wasn’t the only reason she decided to pull him out, as she described many “threats of violence against Enzo” as a result of Bert Crypto’s “election fraud” scheme.

One user in the shady crypto group post said they wanted to “destroy this damn Enzo,” according to a screenshot Caputo shared with DailyMail.com.

“Stupid dog, kill him n****,” wrote another.

Caputo, who has struggled with mental health herself, told DailyMail.com that thanks to Enzo, her condition has improved incredibly.

Once she saw the horrible messages targeting him, even attacking her, she knew she had to talk about it.

The dog mom decided to contact Stephen Calabria, the founder of NYC Dog Mayor, and shared some of the threats she and Enzo received, but he denied that this happened, Caputo said.

In a statement to DailyMail.com about Caputo’s claims, Calabria wrote: ‘We were disappointed that the Honorary NYC Dog Mayor competition, a fun, inclusive and entertaining project to help dogs, would face interference from the crypto world in particular . .

“Despite some printed claims, the NYC Dog Mayor pageant has no business or personal ties – and our attorneys have sent letters to a crypto company in question demanding that they not infringe on our registered trademark or interfere with our competition.

“We are contacting the dogs involved in the competition to remind them that they are all good dogs.”

In addition to his statement, Calabria also responded to mentions of such threats on Instagram, saying, “Enzo has received literally zero threats as far as we know,” and asking for screenshots to be forwarded to him as evidence.

“So now there’s a lot of people on the internet who think I’m a liar because he’s implying that I’m a liar, which I find really disgusting.” said Caputo.

“I don’t know why he would rather imply that I am a liar than make a public statement condemning the hateful messages I receive.”

She explained that she started sending him evidence of the threats, but quickly became frustrated and wondered why he couldn’t just help protect her and her dog.

One of her friends even contacted Calabria about the hateful messages, and according to Caputo, he said those comments “weren’t sent by anyone affiliated with us.”

In an Instagram post, Calabria said he is committed to organizing “fun, inclusive, negativity-free elections.”

“We will not tolerate negativity directed at anyone, dog or human, and we will not support anyone who tries to buy or pay for votes,” he added.

“That said, we can’t moderate every conversation on the Internet [and] I have no control over whether people in the global crypto market organize for a candidate for dog mayor.”

Caputo told DailyMail.com that Calabria blocked and unblocked her on social media multiple times throughout the ordeal.

She added that he even blocked some of Enzo’s loyal followers.

“I can’t even tell you how many of Enzo’s followers have told me they’ve been blocked, but it’s quite a lot and you know they’re being blocked because they’ve called him out on his corruption,” she said.

Even though the crypto group was counting on Bertman to beat Enzo, the dog’s owner, Kathy Grayson, said PIX 11 she had no idea what was happening.

Caputo said she and Enzo had been preparing for the race since July, and that she “really tried my best to promote his platform.”

Now she plans to keep Enzo away from competitions, including the mayoral dog race, after this debacle.

‘It’s discouraging. It’s, you know, beyond disappointing. I just can’t believe it turned into this.

“And you know other people, including him, you know, like his camp all says, it’s not so serious and lighthearted,” she added.

While she agrees this is not a “life-changing event,” Caputo said Calabria “has led to it being anything but that.”

On November 11, Bertman will face his new opponent Simon, whose owner told the outlet, “He doesn’t care if he loses to cryptobros next week.”