NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – Dozens of New York City public housing employees were arrested Tuesday in a sweeping federal corruption investigation that the Department of Justice called the "largest" single-day bribery roundup in its history.
A total of 70 current and former NYC Housing Authority employees were being charged with crimes like bribery and extortion as part of the probe, the DOJ said.
According to federal prosecutors, the workers are accused of "accepting cash payments from contractors in exchange for awarding NYCHA contracts."
Prosecutors allege superintendents and assistant superintendents who held "great power" over no-bid contracts—that is, contracts that didn't need to go through a competitive bidding process—operated "similarly to an organized crime network" to get "lucrative under the table deals."
The workers would decide which contractors received work for jobs valued under $10,000, like plumbing and window repairs, and took a share of the proceeds before signing off on payments to the contractors—an amount that totaled $2 million for $13 million of work over 10 years, according to complaints unsealed Tuesday.
"The superintendent or assistant superintendent needed to sign off on the work so the contractor could get paid by NYCHA, but we allege that these defendants demanded their own cut in the form of cash bribes," U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said during a news conference at the downtown offices of the Southern District of New York.
Williams said the illicit scheme "became a regular practice that dozens of NYCHA employees engaged in."
A map provided by the DOJ shows the developments (in red) where NYCHA staffers allegedly accepted bribes.
According to a DOJ news release, the charges "constitute the largest number of federal bribery charges on a single day in Department of Justice history."
The alleged crimes happened between 2013 to 2023 and involved nearly 100 NYCHA developments—about a third of the 335 total NYCHA developments across the city.
The one-year investigation involved the Department of Investigation and Homeland Security Investigations. Nearly 700 law enforcement agents took part in the arrests, which spanned six states and all five boroughs of the city.
NYCHA is the largest public housing entity in the country, with more than 360,000 New Yorkers living at NYCHA properties. It has been plagued for years by complaints from residents who've drawn attention to aging infrastructure like busted heaters in the winter and leaky pipes causing mold.
The workers in question have been suspended and are being replaced, with NYCHA residents' services not impacted, officials said.