FDNY Commissioner Kavanaugh's fire chief patsy pinched by the feds for inspection bribery scheme

 

 

 Brooklyn Paper

Two high-ranking New York City fire department chiefs are being investigated by the FBI and NYC investigators in connection with a corruption probe, the FDNY has confirmed.

The New York Times first reported Thursday that the FBI and city investigators raided the homes and offices of Anthony Saccavino and Brian Cordasco the morning of Feb. 15 as part of a federal investigation into building inspections.

According to the report, the raids were conducted as part of the investigation into whether the chiefs were paid to fast track safety inspections. Neither of the men have been officially accused of any wrongdoing.

An FDNY spokesperson confirmed to Brooklyn Paper that the department has been cooperating with the investigation, stating that Commissioner Laura Kavanagh was alerted to the allegations last year and “immediately” alerted the city’s Department of Investigation.

“The FDNY’s first priority is always keeping New Yorkers safe, and we expect every member of the department to act appropriately,” the FDNY spokesperson said.

Chief of Fire Prevention Anthony Saccavino and Chief Brian Cordasco, who also works at the Fire Prevention Bureau, have both been placed on modified duty, according to the FDNY.

“We are awaiting guidance from DOI regarding further action,” the spokesperson added.

Saccavino was promoted to the head of the FDNY’s Fire Prevention by Kavanaugh following the demotion of the previous chief, Joseph Jardin, who alleged the move was in response to his complaints over corruption, Gothamist reported.

While still unclear whether Thursday’s raid is connected to the FBI probe into Mayor Eric Adams 2021 mayoral campaign, a spokesperson for the Adams administration told Brooklyn Paper “there is no indication of any direct connection to anyone at City Hall.”

“City Hall became aware of this operation when we were notified by FDNY this morning,” the spokesperson said.

In November, Adams denied the existence of an internal City Hall list aimed at fast-tracking fire system approvals for major developers that is reportedly being eyed by the FBI in its probe of his 2021 campaign.

The so-called “Deputy Mayor of Operations List” was first created by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2021 and continued under Adams’ administration when he took office in 2022, according to reports. The list was used to help major developers cut to the front of the line in getting needed approvals for construction projects from the FDNY.

 

Developer gave Eric Ulrich a discount on a lux apartment hoping he would condemn a supportive housing building for the homeless across the street

 

 

THE CITY 

On the evening of Aug. 10, 2021, Eric Adams joined a rooftop party in Brooklyn where a crowd of real estate industry figures awaited him, each of them bearing gifts. It was a month after Adams’ victory in his hard-fought race to become the Democratic mayoral nominee and he was busily harvesting donations from those eager to show support for the man overwhelmingly favored to become the next mayor of the City of New York.

That morning, a breakfast fundraiser at a Manhattan law firm active in land use issues netted the candidate $38,750 in contributions. He picked up $20,250 more at a later event with healthcare executives and doctors. Another soiree, at a hotel in the Rockaways, yielded $25,925 for his campaign coffers. 

But his biggest haul of the day came on the Brooklyn rooftop. The host was a successful developer and investor in commercial and residential projects around the city named Mark Caller. The party was held atop Caller’s office building on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood where his firm, The Marcal Group, is headquartered. 

Once all donations from the gala had been collected, Adams’ campaign was $47,050 to the better. Almost a third of that money, $15,400, came from members of Caller’s family, with the rest from his friends and business associates, records obtained by THE CITY via a freedom of information request show. 

Even in a campaign that ultimately took in nearly $9 million in private donations, it was the kind of political generosity that stood out. 

Now, the previously undisclosed fundraiser stands out for a much different reason. 

In coming days Caller is expecting to be indicted by the Manhattan district attorney on charges that he provided a luxury apartment at below-market rent to Eric Ulrich, a former City Council member and Adams appointee, in exchange for official favors. 

Ulrich, a Republican ex-Council member from Queens who bucked his party in 2021 to support Adams’ mayoral bid, is also expected to be charged. After Adams took office, he was appointed a senior advisor to the mayor.  A few months later, Adams named him city buildings commissioner.  The post put Ulrich, who held no management experience other than handling his Council staff, in charge of a sprawling agency of some 1,700 employees, one that is crucial to the city’s construction industry and notoriously prone to corruption.

The job didn’t last long. In November, five months after his appointment, Ulrich was forced to resign after it was revealed that the DA had seized his cell phone during an investigation into a mob-tied gambling ring. 

It’s unclear what favors Ulrich is alleged to have provided for Caller. The developer has been involved in significant construction projects that needed city approvals. Since 2020, Caller has built at least four new projects in the Rockaways, part of Ulrich’s former Council district. Just two weeks before he hosted the Adams fundraiser, Caller won a zoning change approval from the city planning commission to add a gym to a new condominium project he built on Beach 116th Street in Rockaway Park. That’s the complex where Ulrich lived in a fifth floor apartment near the ocean with two bedrooms and two baths. Units there currently range from $700,000 to $1.4 million; listed rents go from $3,000 to $4,100.

Campaign records show Caller was an early supporter of Adams’ mayoral bid. In December 2019, nearly a year before Adams officially announced his candidacy, Caller and his wife, Rivka Spitzer, made donations of $1,000 apiece to Adams’ campaign. After Adams became an official candidate, the campaign returned $600 of Caller’s own donation. That’s because, due to his quest for city land use assistance for his Rockaway condo project, he is considered someone doing business with the city and limited to donations of $400 to candidates for citywide office. His wife’s donation was unaffected.

THE CITY

One of the more disturbing allegations involved Ulrich’s effort in 2022 to shut down a hotel housing the homeless because it enraged Caller, the real estate developer. Prosecutors say he made this corrupt effort to aid Caller at the same time he was negotiating to obtain a discount apartment across the street from the hotel from Caller.

At one point in March 2022, while he was a senior advisor to Adams, Caller let Ulrich know he wanted to shut down a hotel at 158 Beach 116th Street that was housing homeless adults because it happened to be across the street from and adjacent to two of his upscale rental buildings.

In a WhatsApp exchange captured by prosecutors, Caller wrote to Ulrich, “There has to be a way to put 158 B116th out of business. It’s an absolute disgrace.”

 In response, Ulrich promised Caller to set up a “task force” of inspectors from the FDNY and the buildings department, writing, “They might be able to vacate the f...g thing. It’ll take months to get it reopened.”

Prosecutors described a conversation Ulrich had with a state Assemblymember described as Jane Doe #1. At the time, Stacy Pheffer Amato was the Assembly member representing the Rockaways. 

Ulrich is alleged to have requested that the Assembly member demand an FDNY/DOB inspection of the hotel, and instructed the Assembly member “to make sure FDNY and DOB issue a full vacate order so the occupants can be moved by the New York City Department of Homeless Services into alternative housing.”

Prosecutors say that shortly after several violations were issued at that address, but none involved a vacate order. Pheffer Amato did not respond to THE CITY’s questions Wednesday about this exchange.

While Ulrich was targeting the homeless shelter, he was simultaneously discussing with Caller obtaining an apartment at a discount rate in a building across the street from the hotel, an upscale address at 133 Beach 116th Street, prosecutors say.

Caller then offered Ulrich an apartment for $2,000 a month, the lowest monthly rental in the building, and said Ulrich could apply the rental toward a down payment on the unit at a reduced rate. He also threw in the furniture and offered to void the closing costs.

Ulrich moved into the apartment about a week before he was named buildings commissioner. Just before the appointment was made public, he called Caller to advise that their communications would no longer be direct.

“We have to be smart,” he said. “I have to be a little more careful because I can’t be conflicted. If you have to communicate with me about something directly, about something concerning a property you own, maybe it’s better if it comes from the councilwoman or the elected officials, so that we’re working on it at their requests.”

 

de Blasio's pay to play and pandemic secrets and lies

 

THE CITY 

Mayor Bill de Blasio violated ethics rules twice by hitting up real estate industry players for donations to a nonprofit he created to boost pet projects, a city board found — but he got away with just warning letters.

City Hall released the two letters Wednesday from the Conflicts of Interest Board, dating from 2014 and 2018, after losing a protracted legal battle with The New York Times to shield the missives from public view.

It was a Department of Investigation report obtained by THE CITY in April 2019 that initially revealed the mayor had solicited funds from donors who had business pending with his administration.

The ethics letters concern the Campaign for One New York, a group that raised over $4 million between 2014 and 2016 to tout such initiatives as pre-K and affordable housing — and promote de Blasio himself as he sought to influence the 2016 Democratic presidential primary.

The records reveal for the first time that the conflicts board cited de Blasio just six months into his administration, in July 2014, for violating ethics rules by personally soliciting $150,000 in donations from people or entities with business before the city.

Not even seven months after receiving the 2014 warning, he kept making similar fundraising calls — asking for donations from two additional developers and James Capalino, a lobbyist who had helped buoy his campaign for mayor, according to the 2018 warning letter.

Both violations occurred after the board had advised de Blasio’s campaign lawyer just after the mayor’s January 2014 inauguration that solicitations of that nature are prohibited by the city’s charter.

 The conflicts board noted in 2018 that the mayor also failed to provide a disclaimer to potential donors that their donations wouldn’t influence any city decisions.

“By soliciting these three donations from firms with business pending or about to be pending before executive agencies, and providing no disclaimers, you not only disregarded the Board’s repeated written advice, but created the very appearance of coercion and improper access to you and your staff that the Board’s advice sought to help you avoid,” the September 2018 letter says.

Despite the stern wording of the letter, it concludes that because the mayor’s nonprofit was disbanded in March 2016 — and because City Council passed legislation further regulating donations to city-affiliated nonprofits — that no discipline was warranted other than the warning.

THE CITY 

 As COVID-19 ravaged New York in March 2020, officials at the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene began plotting out where the virus was striking hardest across the five boroughs.

A map of fatalities, broken down by ZIP code, was ready to go online in the first week of April as New York neared the expected peak of deaths, according to people familiar with the matter and to emails reviewed by THE CITY.

“I think that the reality of this scenario is we need to be transparent to the highest level,” one top health department doctor wrote in an April 5, 2020, email, two days before coronavirus fatalities reached their apex.

But City Hall did not approve public release of neighborhood-level death data until May 18. New York City saw 12,923 confirmed and 3,399 probable deaths from the coronavirus between April 5 and May 18, 2020.

The emails provide a window into Mayor Bill de Blasio’s management of pandemic information in the harrowing early weeks of the COVID crisis — a glimpse revealed at a moment when his Department of Health once again demands the trust of New Yorkers as new variants, including Omicron, spread.

On Monday, the mayor announced a broad vaccine mandate for all private-sector employees — calling the move a “pre-emptive strike” against another possible wave of infections.

“We can talk about all the other tools and we will, but vaccination is the central weapon in this war against COVID,” he said.

“It’s the one thing that has worked every single time across the board on a strategic level. It’s the reason New York City is back in so many ways.”

Nearly 35,000 New Yorkers have died of COVID-19 since the first death was confirmed in early March 2020.

When New York faced its first COVID wave that spring, longtime city health department staffers believed it was vital to release information about where people were dying — even with caveats of imperfect data and a rapidly changing situation, according to people familiar with the matter and to the emails reviewed by THE CITY.

But information languished after being approved by the health department, which couldn’t publish anything without City Hall’s OK, those familiar with the matter said.

City Hall officials, though, blamed the delay in releasing the granular fatality data on a split within the health department, where, they said, some officials contended that ZIP code-level maps could create a stigma in hard-hit communities and a false sense of safety in other neighborhoods.

At that point, the virus was surging: Hundreds of New Yorkers a day were dying of COVID-19, with 815 people succumbing on April 7 — the deadliest day for the city during the pandemic’s so far 21-month toll.

Using borough-level fatality data then available, THE CITY had revealed on April 3, 2020, that Bronx residents were dying at a rate double that of the city, spurring calls for focused help and resources. When the city’s first fatality map was finally released on May 18, 2020, it showed that COVID largely slammed poor neighborhoods hardest.

Meanwhile, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, then the health commissioner, was battling behind the scenes with de Blasio over the city’s response to the unprecedented health crisis. De Blasio also clashed frequently with then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Danielle Filson, a spokesperson for de Blasio, responded to THE CITY’s inquiries with a statement:

“City Hall swiftly delivered critical information to New Yorkers, and did so with accuracy and integrity,” she said. “We led the nation in our response to the pandemic — holding daily press conferences while setting up a testing and vaccine infrastructure that has kept New York City safe.”

Eric Adams got a pile of cash to save his non-profit org's concert promotion from his lawyer and chosen chief of staff

NY Daily News 

A Brooklyn power broker in the running for a job in Eric Adams’ new administration had his law firm make a $50,000 no-interest loan to save a summer concert series closely tied to the mayor-elect, emails obtained by the Daily News reveal.

Frank Carone, a lawyer for the Brooklyn Democratic Party and partner at the politically connected Abrams Fensterman law firm, has served as both Adams’ lawyer and fund-raiser. Emails obtained by The News through a Freedom of Information request shed new light on Carone’s close ties to the Brooklyn borough president and future mayor.

In the summer of 2019, Carone and his law firm came to the rescue of the Wingate Concert Series, which serves as an Adams showcase, after it ran into financial trouble. Adams regularly appeared onstage at the popular annual shows, which have featured the likes of Slick Rick and R&B star Monica. Promotional flyers prominently credited Adams for organizing the free event.

Adams sponsored the series through the borough president’s office and his nonprofit, One Brooklyn. In 2017, he tapped the nonprofit Make Music New York to run the concerts.

Over the next three years, Make Music’s budget ballooned from less than $200,000 to nearly $1 million, and Borough Hall’s annual contribution doubled — from $100,000 to $200,000 — making Adams’ office the group’s top government benefactor, records show.

But in 2019, Make Music’s expenses shot up by $300,000, according to public records.

For the show to go on, the nonprofit needed money fast.

Enter Carone and his politically plugged-in law partner Howard Fensterman. Adams’ deputy, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, introduced them to the head of Make Music New York, James Burke.

“They understand the urgency,” Lewis-Martin wrote to the three men in an introductory email on June 20, 2019. “When others fail, Howard and Frank deliver.”

Community and Council member calling for investigation of bad Blaz's bribe derived blood center tower deal

  

NY Daily News

A community group opposed to a contentious Upper East Side rezoning is demanding two city watchdog agencies investigate Mayor de Blasio and a law firm pushing the land-use change, citing what it describes as de Blasio’s “potential conflict of interest.”

De Blasio, who supports the rezoning, owes the law firm Kramer, Levin & Naftalis an estimated principal debt of $300,000 for work it did to defend him against multiple corruption investigations starting in 2015. With interest, the total debt comes to about $435,000 — but so far, none of it has been repaid.

Kramer Levin is also representing the New York Blood Center, a non-profit blood bank, which is pursuing the rezoning so it can replace its three-floor headquarters with a tower more than 300-feet tall.

The plan has been a lightning rod in the community, with locals saying the proposed building isn’t a good fit for the mostly residential neighborhood and area elected officials lining up against it.

 De Blasio and several members of the City Council, however, are backing the plan, which has led one community group that opposes it — Eastsiders for Responsible Zoning — to question the mayor’s considerable debt to Kramer Levin, citing it as a red flag that the city’s Department of Investigation and Conflicts of Interest Board should further examine.

“Mayor de Blasio currently owes Kramer Levin a substantial sum stemming from Kramer Levin’s representation of the mayor in multiple corruption probes of his fundraising activities,” the group’s co-founder Bill Angelos wrote in a letter to DOI dated Nov. 8. “The non-payment of this debt represents a potential conflict of interest.”

Angelos goes on to write that the mayor’s support for the project and his efforts to whip votes in its favor stems in part from “the substantial obligations the mayor owes Kramer Levin.”

“Most concerning is that there’s no payment plan disclosed,” he continues. “With each passing month, this debt grows by an additional $4,000, creating more and more leverage for Kramer Levin against the mayor.”

de Blasio offers city services as a bribe to get Kew Gardens tower prison approved.

Forest Hills Patch

 In a private meeting this spring with Kew Gardens residents to discuss hotly-contested plans for a new jail in their neighborhood, Mayor Bill de Blasio promised they would be compensated for the jail's incursion, but he didn't provide specifics.

Now, a tentative list of those specifics has come to light. 

 Koslowitz has also pressed city officials to reduce the size of the Kew Gardens jail, which current plans say would be 27 stories tall and have a capacity of 1,150 detainees.

The proposed jail — one of four new jails the city wants to build to replace detention facilities on Rikers Island — is expected to be smaller than that by the time the City Council votes on the plan next week, according to Koslowitz's spokesperson, Michael Cohen.


Cohen pushed back on using the word "exchange" to describe the list of items City Hall is promising 
Koslowitz, who represents Kew Gardens, to secure her vote in favor of the jail plan.

He declined to specify other items being negotiated because he said the list hasn't yet been finalized.


Asked how he would describe the deal, he said, "I would describe it as the Mayor making good on his word that he understands that the community is sacrificing something here and his administration would like to do something for the community."


Koslowitz's vote is critical to the passage of the city's controversial jail plan, which calls for building a new lockup in every borough but Staten Island by 2026.


That's because members of the City Council, whose binding vote on the jails is scheduled for Oct. 17, tend to vote in lockstep with the council members whose districts are affected by a given land-use plan.


Koslowitz has already pushed de Blasio's office to nix plans for an infirmary in the Kew Gardens jail that would serve all four new detention centers.


In the private meeting earlier this year, de Blasio indicated he would go even further.


"When we ask a community to do something for the whole city, which is what we're doing here, then the community has a right to say, here are things that would help our community, including things we've been trying to get for a long time and haven't gotten," de Blasio said, according to a recording of the March 27 meeting reviewed by Patch.


"How can we say to the community, we're asking you to shoulder a burden but we want to do something back that's really going to make a difference?" de Blasio added.


Still, the jail proposal is intensely controversial among Koslowitz's constituents as well as advocates for No New Jails NYC, who say the city should close Rikers but not build any new jails.

Koslowitz's response? "Whether I supported it or not, that jail was happening."

 The elected in NYC do not represent the people anymore. What the mayor wants, the mayor gets it. Got it.

BREAKING NEWS! NYC Department of Buildings inspector refused to take a bribe!

NY Daily News\

A pair of Queens contractors hoping to dodge building safety code violations tried to bribe a city inspector, city investigators announced Tuesday.

Ismail Mohammad Hassan, 22, and Mohamed Ali Hassan, 50 – no relation – were each charged with bribery in the third degree after they offered $400 to a buildings inspector in exchange for not issuing violations at a residential and commercial construction site in Queens, according to the Department of Investigation.

The contractors were trying to evade violations after failing to follow safety rules and get required construction permits for 55-43 Myrtle Ave. in Ridgewood, officials said. A stop work order was issue for the property, owned by H Management Corp., on Monday morning after the inspector saw unapproved construction work.

After the contractors offered the $400 bribe on Monday morning, the DOB inspector informed the Department of Investigation who put him under surveillance, officials said.

When the inspector returned to the construction site to discuss the violations later that day, Mohamed Ali Hassan removed $290 from his pocket, handed the cash to Ismail Mohammad Hassan, who placed the money into the inspector’s hand, according to city investigators.

When the buildings inspector asked where the rest of the money was, Mohamed Ali Hassan allegedly said if he came back later they would provide the rest.

 That's funny. It's like the D.O.B. decided to pinch these guys because the inspector thought he was getting stiffed.

Luna Park affordable housing board members took nearly a million in bribes from people that got first dibs to apartments

NY Post


Three Brooklyn women at the helm of a Coney Island affordable-housing development pocketed more than $870,000 in bribes by fraudulently fast-tracking wealthy home-buyers into high-demand units meant for low-income families that needed them, officials said Tuesday.
 
Anna Treybich, Irina Zeltser and Karina Andriyan now face a 78-count indictment for the scam they ran from January 2013 through this month at the taxpayer-subsidized Luna Park complex, funding their luxurious tastes, officials said.
 
“Corrupt insiders got cash bribes, applicants got the apartment they wanted without having to wait, and honest families were left out in the cold,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said.
 
He was surrounded by a sampling of the trio’s alleged ill-gotten finery, including bags, shoes and jewelry bearing the names Chanel, Fendi and Cartier — and a rack of fur coats.
 
Playing gatekeeper in their respective roles as president, treasurer and office manager of the Luna Park Housing Corp., Treybich, Zeltser and Andriyan wormed well-heeled tenants into 18 apartments at the five-building, 6,000-resident Mitchell-Lama complex in exchange for cash bribes as large as $120,000, prosecutors said.

 In nearly all of the cases, they did so by doctoring applicants’ documents to claim that they were relatives of outgoing tenants, allowing them to cut ahead of non-connected applicants, some of whom had seen their names sit on waiting lists for decades, authorities charge.

Otherwise, Mitchell-Lama hopefuls coming in cold without relatives are processed on a first-come-first-served basis.
As of Tuesday, the waiting list for Luna Park included 585 applicants for studios, 3,806 for one-bedrooms and more than 9,700 each for two- and three-bedrooms, according to public records.

Ed Magnano and wife convicted of bribery charges

 

NY Post

 
Former Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and his wife, Linda, have been found guilty at their seven-week corruption retrial on Long Island — and each now faces as much as 20 years prison.

In a late-morning split verdict Friday, a jury found Mangano guilty of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from ex-restaurant owner Harendra Singh in exchange for the once powerful pol’s help in securing more than $20 million in loans.


Ed was cleared of a single count of extortion. He was also cleared of charges that alleged he swung to Singh a lucrative contract to provide bread and rolls to the county jail, and a second contract to feed the county’s emergency workers after Hurricane Sandy.

But he could still go to prison for two decades under the one top-count conviction.
The same jury found Linda guilty of four of the five counts against her: two for obstructing justice and two for making false statements, all to cover up the bribe scheme. Ed was also convicted of a single obstruction charge.

She, too, faces a potential two-decade prison term.
 
The two are maintaining their innocence, and said they will appeal the verdicts in the case, which proved an embarrassment for Mayor de Blasio.

At both this trial and last year’s mistrial, Singh testified under a cooperation agreement that he was a big donor and had the mayor at his beck-and-call.

This may be why the co-mayors went to South Carolina this weekend. Bill took a lot more from Singh and he has also anointed his wife with a plum job running the Advance for New York fund and the funding government void THRIVE mental health program.

 

Jury still didn't buy the excuses of Skelos and son

From the NY Post:

Ex-Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos was convicted Tuesday on eight counts of bribery, extortion and conspiracy. The jury agreed he used his power to muscle companies into providing his son Adam (also convicted) with $300,000 worth of no-show and low-show jobs.

It was the second guilty verdict for the pair, whose earlier convictions were overturned based on a Supreme Court ruling that narrowed the definition of official corruption. And it took place next door to the courtroom where Alain Kaloyeros, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s economic-development czar, was convicted of bid-rigging just last week.

Since March, juries also have convicted Cuomo’s right-hand man, Joe Percoco, of soliciting and accepting bribes, as well as former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver — Skelos’ fellow member of the “three men in a room” who controlled Albany — of corruptly abusing his office.

Looks like Albany’s swamp is finally being drained, one corrupt official at a time.

Though there was nothing new in the charges, the verdict was a fresh rebuke to the state capital’s culture of corruption — and its continued refusal to enact meaningful ethics reform.

DEP bribery scheme detailed

From NBC:

A former New York City Department of Environmental Protection employee was cuffed in a $165 million construction corruption scheme. Erica Byfield reports.

The case against Bill de Blasio

From the NY Times:

When a New York restaurateur who had donated to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s campaign grew increasingly desperate to get a lease renewed, he sent an email directly to one of the city’s most powerful people: Emma Wolfe, a top aide to the mayor.

“Hope you had a great holiday season,” the restaurateur, Harendra Singh, wrote in January 2015. “I would love to speak with you at your convenience.”

Ms. Wolfe took just nine minutes to respond: “Absolutely,” she wrote, “let’s talk on Monday.”

A meeting was soon arranged — part of a longstanding effort that federal prosecutors say Mr. de Blasio and his aides undertook to help Mr. Singh in return for campaign contributions.

The emails were among a raft of evidence related to the alleged scheme that was revealed in Federal District Court here on Wednesday, as part of a case that has revived discussions of possible impropriety by Mr. de Blasio, despite his not actually being involved in the trial.

From the Daily News:

Asked if de Blasio ever called him and solicited donations, Singh replied, “He was always looking for money for himself.”

In court in Central Islip, L.I., Singh made clear that he openly discussed his ties to the mayor with top de Blasio aides as he sought their help resolving a rent dispute with the city.

And they responded by pressuring the Department of Citywide Administrative Services to go easy on back rent he owed for the restaurant he owned on city land in Queens.

In a March 22, 2014, email to top de Blasio aide Emma Wolfe, Singh wrote, “I humbly request you to get me some time to get some issue in front of some City officials. I am very loyal and very early friend of Bill and not (to) be able to get in touch with anyone is a little heart wrenching.”

Soon after, one of Wolfe’s assistants responded, “happy to see if I can help.”

De Blasio to crooked donor: “Do what you’ve got to do.”

From the Daily News:

A major donor to Mayor de Blasio dropped a bombshell Thursday, testifying under oath that when he told Hizzoner he’d have to arrange illegal campaign donations, de Blasio offered a stunning response:

“Do what you’ve got to do.”

Harendra Singh, a former Queens restaurateur who threw free fund-raisers for the mayor and raised thousands of dollars for him, said the mayor twice took a look-the-other-way approach when he broached the subject of illegal contributions.

It’s unclear when the exchanges took place, and whether de Blasio was a mayoral candidate or in office at the time.

Singh, 59, is testifying as a prosecution witness in the trial of a Long Island politician, ex-Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano. Mangano’s wife, Linda, and former Oyster Bay Town Supervisor John Venditto are also on trial.

Singh’s pleaded guilty to bribery charges and stated he raised funds for de Blasio to win favorable treatment from City Hall over a lease dispute involving his restaurant, Water’s Edge.

Prosecutors have said a top de Blasio aide, identified by sources as Emma Wolfe, pressured city managers to treat Singh favorably.

Last March prosecutors announced de Blasio and his minions would not be charged with criminal activity, but they made a point of saying they’d done favors for donors.

2 de Blasio donors charged, but not de Blasio himself

From the NY Times:

A major donor to Mayor Bill de Blasio pleaded guilty to using campaign contributions as bribes to buy better treatment at City Hall — and yet the mayor, who took the money and aided the donor, was not charged with a crime.

Another donor pleaded guilty to honest services wire fraud that included making political contributions in exchange of official action — and again, no charges for the mayor.

The outcome has led some, including the WNYC radio host Brian Lehrer, to an obvious question.

“How can someone be guilty of giving you a bribe and you not be guilty of taking it?” Mr. Lehrer asked Mr. de Blasio on Friday.

It’s abundantly clear,” the mayor said. But it wasn’t.

“This man did a lot of bad things in a lot of places,” Mr. de Blasio said of Harendra Singh, a restaurateur who pleaded guilty to bribing the mayor. “I’m someone who never did, never would be involved in such an effort.”

Several factors were in play.

The United States Supreme Court set a much higher bar for public corruption cases with its 2016 ruling that reversed the bribery conviction of the former Virginia governor, Bob McDonnell. In the ruling, the court determined that making introductions or setting up meetings, even in exchange for gifts or financial benefits, did not constitute a crime.

As a consequence, several prominent corruption convictions were set aside, and prosecutors have become more cautious in taking on such cases.

Furthermore, bribery cases against elected officials based on campaign contributions are rare, the legal experts said. That is in part because the Supreme Court has drawn a clear distinction between a legal contribution to a political campaign and other kinds of payments like cash, gifts or other benefits that in effect go into the pocket of a public servant.

It may also have been that it was simply easier for prosecutors to bring charges against the person buying access, because the men admitted guilt, in the face of abundant evidence, as part of plea deals in which they agreed to cooperate with the government against other defendants. Mr. Singh is a witness in corruption trials on Long Island; Mr. Rechnitz testified against a labor official who was accused of steering millions of dollars of officers’ retirement funds into a hedge fund in exchange for promised kickbacks.

De Blasio donor pleaded guilty to bribery

From the NY Times:

A campaign donor to Mayor Bill de Blasio secretly pleaded guilty in federal court to bribery, admitting that he used his contributions to the mayor to try to win favorable lease terms for a restaurant he owned on city property, newly unsealed court records show.

While the court papers included no charges against Mr. de Blasio or other city officials, a federal criminal information in the case makes it clear that the donor, Harendra Singh, got something in return.

The court documents said that the mayor took steps to benefit Mr. Singh in exchange for the contributions, and that an unnamed senior aide to Mr. de Blasio arranged a meeting to pressure a city agency to offer more favorable terms to Mr. Singh.

Last March, federal prosecutors who had investigated Mr. de Blasio’s fund-raising decided not to bring criminal charges against the mayor based on what they described as a high burden of proof and the challenge of proving corruption without “evidence of personal profit.”

Mr. Singh’s plea hearing occurred in a sealed Long Island courtroom before United States District Court Judge Sandra J. Feuerstein on Oct. 17, 2016; Mr. Singh said that his donations were intended as part of a quid pro quo, according to a transcript of the hearing.

“I gave these donations to the elected official in exchange for efforts by that official and other city officials to obtain a lease renewal from the city agency for my restaurant on terms that were favorable to me,” he said.

Mr. Singh did not name the mayor, and the court documents refer instead to an “Official #2” who received the donations; various details in the documents make it clear that the unnamed official is Mr. de Blasio.

Building inspectors arrested for accepting bribes

From Eyewitness News:

Working in tandem with the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office the Department of Investigation recently uncovered three different construction schemes involving more than a dozen property managers, developers, and inspectors.

"There is an unquestionable, unbreakable link between construction integrity and safety," said DOI Commissioner Mark Peters.

According to indictments released Wednesday, two New York City buildings inspectors, 55-year-old Hiram Beza and 53-year-old Dean Mulzac, allegedly overlooked violations approving properties under construction in Brooklyn and Queens in exchange for cash and gifts. Beza also allegedly received a new kitchen and driveway for his write-offs.

Past briber back at work

From the Daily News:

Back in the day, Ron Lattanzio was accused of throwing cocaine parties in his city Buildings Department office, then later bribing some of the department’s top officials after he was fired.

He sought favors from City Council members and regularly certified projects as safe using a stamp from a retired engineer who never saw the plans. Eventually he got caught, secretly pleaded guilty to bribery and for two years worked as an undercover informant against his former Buildings Department pals.

Lattanzio testified repeatedly before a grand jury and in open court, and in the end corruption charges were filed against 18 people, including the No. 2 official in the department.

Prosecutors recommended he get no jail time and a judge agreed. He then promptly disappeared.

Lattanzio, 59, has quietly returned to again pull levers at the same city Buildings Department he once corrupted every chance he could, a Daily News investigation has found.

Through several companies he runs, he and his employees deal each week with the Buildings Department, obtaining permits and interacting with inspectors for developers of some of the biggest buildings in the city.

He and his executives are also once again writing thousands of dollars of checks to politicians, including Mayor de Blasio and Jumaane Williams, chair of the City Council committee that oversees the Buildings Department.

Landlords and National Grid employees pinched for bribery

From CBS2:

Dozens of Brooklyn landlords and National Grid employees have been accused of illegally installing gas meters to put money in their own pockets.

CBS2’s Ali Bauman had exclusive access as many of the suspects turned themselves in on Thursday morning. Many of the suspects didn’t have criminal records, but some now face years in state prison.

The 37 people were accused of working hand in hand to bypass city regulations and make a quick buck, many now face charges of bribery, falsifying records, and the highest felony charge — enterprise corruption

Air pollution inspector arrested for accepting bribe

From DNA Info:

A city air pollution inspector was busted for soliciting a bribe from a Brooklyn construction site after threatening to impose a stop work order, officials said Wednesday.

Sean Richardson-Daniel, 53, was inspecting 222 Pulaski St. on Dec. 4, 2015 when he told an informant he believed was a property representative that he would issue the stop work order unless he received $15,000 in cash, even though there were no active Department of Environmental Protection complaints against the property, according to the Department of Investigation.

Woodside homeowner arrested for attempting to bribe DOB

From QNS:

A Woodside property owner whose two-story building was deemed too hazardous for living was arrested this week for trying to bribe the city into overlooking the vacate order.

Susana Escobar-Cardena, 65, was charged on Dec. 12 and charged with third-degree bribery and second-degree reckless endangerment. Escobar-Cardena, the owner of a two-family home at 62-17 39th Ave., had illegal single room occupancies in the cellar and first and second floors of the building.

In March of this year, according to prosecutors, the Department of Buildings (DOB) issued a vacate order on the property and told the owner that no one was allowed to re-rent or live there. On Dec. 10 an investigator re-inspected the property and found two rooms on the second floor with no emergency exits and one room in the cellar with no emergency exit.

Escobar-Cardena told the investigator that she had nowhere else to go and was told that the American Red Cross could help her find a new home. She proceeded to place $200 in cash into the investigators hand. The investigator told her it was not appropriate and told his colleague who was outside, according to the criminal complaint.

The investigator and his colleague went back into the building to record the conversation with Escobar-Cardena who again tried giving the DOB employees $200.