70 Current and Ex-NYCHA Workers Cuffed in Historic, Decade-Long $2M Bribery and Extortion Bust

New York Post

Seventy current and former NYCHA workers were busted Tuesday in a 10-year, $2 million pay-to-play corruption scheme involving the largest number of federal bribery charges brought in a single day in Department of Justice history.

The avalanche of bribery and extortion crimes occurred in about a third of the 35 developments in the New York Housing Authority — the country’s biggest public housing agency — when the suspects demanded cash in exchange for lucrative construction, maintenance and no-bid contracts, officials said.

The defendants, all of whom were working for NYCHA at the time, sought between 10% and 20% of the contracts’ values — or kickbacks of between $500 and $2,000 — though some asked for higher amounts, authorities said.

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