The 70th and final conviction in a sweeping New York City corruption probe was secured on Tuesday, concluding a decade-long bribery scheme in which public housing employees steered work to contractors in exchange for bribes.
The arrests in February 2024 were the largest single-day bribery takedown in the history of the U.S. Justice Department, prosecutors said, targeting current and former employees of the New York City Housing Authority, many of them former supervisors.
“All 70 charged defendants have now been convicted,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement, “for attempting to criminally leverage the contracting process of work for affordable housing for New Yorkers to line their own pockets.”
The defendants generally demanded between 10% and 20% of a contract’s value, which typically ranged from $500 to $2,000, according to the release. The housing authority workers pocketed over $2.1 million from bribes paid by companies that received $15 million in no-bid contracts, said Commissioner Jocelyn E. Strauber of the city’s Department of Investigation.
Of the 70 individuals charged, three were convicted at trial, 56 pleaded guilty to felony charges and 11 pleaded guilty to misdemeanor offences. The charges included bribery, fraud and extortion.
