Over 70 current, former NYCHA employees charged in federal bribery, extortion case

NEW YORK CITY - Authorities announced dozens of current and former NYCHA employees were arrested and charged in a massive corruption probe.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, along with other officials, described Tuesday morning the $2 million corruption scandal that involved NYCHA employees and repair work.

At least 70 employees and contractors were indicted on federal charges for schemes where the NCYHA superintendents and others recieved bribes for repair jobs and other work that needed to be done on the many buildings throughout the city, authorities said.

Authorities said the NYCHA employees abused, in particular, the no bid process on some jobs to set their own prices that included bribes and kickbacks.

According to investigators, they began looking into the pay-to-play schemes more than a year ago, but they believe at this point in their investigation – which is still very early on – it had been going on for at least a decade now. 

"These contracts were valued at under $10,000, but they involved essential work in NYCHA buildings such as plumbing or window repairs," Williams said. "The contracts were sometimes called no-bid contracts because they did not need to go through a competitive bidding process. Instead, the superintendent or assistant superintendent could choose the contractors who would receive these contracts and that is the power that we allege that these defendants abused."

Investigators said federal agents, including Homeland Security, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals, picked up 65 of the 70 people in the particular indictment across six different states, including every borough from New York City.

The charges constitute the largest number of federal bribery charges on a single day in Department of Justice history, authorities said.