As many as 70 New York City Housing Authority employees were arrested and officially charged after appearing in court following a federal corruption investigation.
The workers were all released on bail set between $25,000 and $50,000.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams announced the
largest single-day bribery takedown Tuesday
in the history of the Department of Justice.
The alleged conduct started in 2013 and ran until 2023. The defendants have been charged with allegedly accepting cash payments from contractors in exchange for awarding NYCHA contracts.
The dozens of current and former employees of NYCHA demanded $2 million in bribe money from contractors in exchange for giving out more than $13 million in work at NYCHA buildings, officials say. Contractors who failed to pay a kickback were cut out of work, officials say.
“Sometimes the cash payments would be $500 or somewhere in that range. But of course, it added up given the span of the conduct here to about $2 million in bribes that were paid overall,” Williams said.