70 Current And Former NYCHA Employees Charged With Bribery, Extortion
Federal prosecutors charged 70 current and former employees of the New York City Housing Authority with bribery Tuesday, hailing it as the most bribery arrests made in a single day in Department of Justice history.
The sweeping takedown was aimed at superintendents and assistant superintendents who demanded bribes and kickbacks from contractors hired to do minor repairs at NYCHA properties.
Repairs that cost less than $10K aren't subject to a public bidding process, and dozens of public employees exploited that threshold by demanding contractors pay an average bribe of $500 to $2K to secure a contract, according to the 476-page complaint unsealed Tuesday.
At a press conference Tuesday morning, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said the scheme from some of the individuals charged dates back to 2013. His office said the 70 individuals charged, 66 of whom were arrested Tuesday, accepted more than $2B in total bribes.
"NYCHA residents deserve better," Williams said at the press conference. "My office is committed to cleaning up the corruption that has plagued NYCHA for far too long."
Charges ranged from bribery to conspiracy to extortion, and the schemes touched all five boroughs and roughly a third of NYCHA's 335 housing complexes, New York City Department of Investigation Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber said at a press conference Tuesday morning. More than 200,000 New Yorkers live in the affected complexes.
"Make no mistake, this alleged pervasive corruption had the biggest impact on NYCHA residents themselves, who may have been cheated out of better services and programs," Ivan Arvelo, the special agent in charge of the New York field office of Homeland Security Investigations, said in a statement.
It isn't the first time NYCHA superintendents have been charged for this type of corruption. Two supers were sentenced to 15 and 33 months in prison last year after pleading guilty to accepting bribes on no-bid contracts.
Strauber said DOI had made recommendations to NYCHA on how to clean up the no-bid contracting process in September 2021, but they weren't sufficiently implemented, leaving the door open to widespread corruption across the department.
"NYCHA has zero tolerance for wrongful and illegal activity," NYCHA CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt said in a statement. "The individuals allegedly involved in these acts put their greed first and violated the trust of our residents, their fellow NYCHA colleagues and all New Yorkers. These actions are counter to everything we stand for as public servants and will not be tolerated in any form."
DOI has made 14 reform recommendations for NYCHA to implement following the investigation, and Strauber said she is optimistic that the nation's largest public housing body will implement them.
Asked at the end of the press conference why he decided to announce 70 separate indictments in the same day, Williams said he wanted to send a message.
"The culture of corruption at NYCHA needs to end today," Williams said.
