Feb 13, 2015 2 min read Barry Rice

DOB-HPD Employees And Brooklyn Property Managers Arrested In Bribery Scandal

Image courtesy of Manhattan DA's office. — Image courtesy of Manhattan DA’s office.

Dozens of residential buildings and residents in Bed-Stuy, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Borough Park and other neighborhoods across Brooklyn — including Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Flatlands, Midwood, and Coney Island — are caught up in a bribery scandal that has led to the arrest of several officials with the Department of Buildings (11 arrests) and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (five arrests).

As seen here in a map released by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, the scandal covers both Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Those arrested include Luis Soto and Barry Rice, Jr., two Brooklyn HPD housing inspectors, and several property managers or owners who allegedly paid Soto and Rice to, for example, falsify records, remove building safety violations on a building in Bed-Stuy and evict tenants in Bushwick “under false pretenses” and “without a valid vacate order.”

According to the Manhattan DA’s office:

In one such scheme, between June 2014 and August 2014, defendant ABRAHAM MERTZ, a Brooklyn property manager, is charged with paying SOTO more than $20,000 in bribes to remove 476 violations at 13 separate properties in the Bushwick, Williamsburg, and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods of Brooklyn. SOTO then allegedly paid ORTIZ to falsify records in HPD’s BOSS system. The dismissed violations include:

The presence of mice and roaches;
Missing smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors;
Inadequate lighting at a building’s entrance; and,
A defective hallway ceiling.

In a similar scheme, between July 18, 2014, and August 8, 2014, ROBERT CADOCH, another Brooklyn property manager, is charged with paying SOTO $6,000 in bribes to remove 96 violations at three separate properties in Bedford-Stuyvesant. ORTIZ was in turn paid by SOTO to falsify records in HPD’s BOSS system. The dismissed violations include:

A rotted door frame;
The lack of electric supply to hallway ceiling light fixtures;
Unlawful bars or gates obstructing a fire escape; and,
The presence of mice, flies, and roaches.

The news that tenants were unlawfully evicted has already led Assemblymember Joseph Lentol — whose district includes Williamsburg and parts of Fort Greene — to send a letter to DOB Commissioner Rick Chandler requesting “an immediate halt and top-down reevaluation of all building evictions in the city of New York.”

The arrests and bribery charges are the result of a two-year-long investigation by the Department of Investigations and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s Rackets Bureau.

The investigation revealed evidence of approximately $450,000 worth of alleged bribes in numerous, distinct schemes between 16 DOB and HPD employees and 22 property managers and owners, six expeditors, two contractors, and one engineer. Indictments filed in Kings County Supreme Court will be handled by Manhattan prosecutors, pursuant to a cross-designation authorized by Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson.

Brooklyn DA Thompson condemned “this extensive and unacceptable betrayal of the public trust by city government employees” and pledged himself and his staff “to continue to work closely with our law enforcement partners to root out public corruption, including corruption caused by those who try to use their money to gain an unfair advantage.”