Last week’s bribery charges against 70 New York City Housing Authority employees are just the latest in a long list of scandals by low- and mid-level public workers in New York who abuse their power over their public mini-fiefdoms.
On Tuesday, the Manhattan US attorney accused the employees of skimming $2 million in bribes in connection with NYCHA repair contracts worth less than $10,000 apiece but that added up to a whopping $250 million.
It was the largest number of Justice Department bribery charges ever in a single day.
The bribes averaged about $28,000 per worker, though some managers made far more. Nirmal Lorick hauled in $153,000 from $1.3 million in contracts, prosecutors say; Juan Mercado scored $314,300 off $1.8 million in contracts.
NYCHA’s $78 billion repair backlog, on top of ongoing maintenance needs at its 2,411 buildings, makes it ripe for corruption.
And corruption has long plagued the agency, from the lowest-level workers right up to the top: