While cities in the U.S. grapple with major housing affordability issues, officials at the country’s largest housing authority, the New York City Housing Authority(NYCHA), are gaining national attention for allegedly lining their own pockets. The Department of Justice announced on Tuesday, Feb. 6, that it made the largest bust on federal employees on a single day in the department’s history, alleging dozens of current and former employees accepted bribes.
“The corruption we have alleged infected every corner of this city,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said.
Williams spoke to reporters and said that the Justice Department charged 70 current and former NYCHA employees for allegedly demanding up to $2 million In bribes. Williams added that accepting bribes from contractors became “business as usual” within the NYCHA.
“Superintendents, assistant superintendents, and others held great power in deciding which contractors would receive small contracts for repair or construction work; these contracts were valued at under $10,000,” Williams said.
Contracts worth less than $10,000 are not required to go through a public bidding process; they are known as no-bid contracts, or contracts that the Justice Department said are given to contractors at the discretion of a NYCHA superintendent or assistant superintendent. That discretion, Williams alleged, was abused by the NYCHA defendants.
“After a contractor finished their work, the superintendent or assistant superintendent needed to sign off on the work so the contractor could get paid by NYCHA,” Williams said. “But we allege that these defendants demanded their own cut in the form of cash bribes.”
Williams said that of the 335 NYCHA housing developments across New York City, nearly one-third of them were involved in the bribery scheme. One in 17 New Yorkers live in NYCHA housing developments, and the housing authority receives $1.5 billion in federal funding every year.
According to the indictment, the 70 defendants are each being charged with solicitation and receipt of a bribe, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. The defendants are also charged with extortion under color of official right, which carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.