70 New York public housing employees charged with bribery, extortion

U.S. federal prosecutors charged 70 current and former employees of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), the largest public housing agency in North America, on Tuesday with taking bribes in exchange for awarding no-bid contracts.

Damian Williams, the attorney in Manhattan, called it "the largest single-day bribery takedown" in the history of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The current and former NYCHA employees, 66 of whom were arrested on Tuesday morning, according to Williams' office, are each charged with extortion as government workers, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and with soliciting and receiving bribes. Some of the accused also face additional conspiracy charges.

According to the criminal complaint, the defendants, including supervisors, demanded cash from contractors before they would authorize a contract or sign off on a completed job. If they did not pay, they would award the work to someone else.

As alleged, the defendants typically demanded approximately 10 percent to 20 percent of contract value, pocketing between $500 and $2,000 depending on the size of contract. In total, they are accused of demanding over two million dollars in bribes in exchange for awarding no-bid contracts worth over 13 million dollars across about 100 different NYCHA buildings, according to the complaint.

"Instead of acting in the interests of NYCHA residents, the City of New York, or taxpayers, the 70 defendants charged today allegedly used their jobs at NYCHA to line their own pockets," Williams said in the announcement.

"My Office is firmly committed to cleaning up the corruption that has plagued NYCHA for far too long so that its residents can be served with integrity and have the high-quality affordable homes that they deserve. The culture of corruption at NYCHA ends today," he said.

All 70 accused NYCHA employees have been suspended. Federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations have arrested 65 defendants in six states and all five boroughs of New York City.

According to publicly filed documents, NYCHA is the largest public housing authority in the country, providing housing to one in 17 New Yorkers in 335 developments across the city and receiving over 1.5 billion dollars in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development every year.

(With input from agencies)