Brooklyn housing inspector, chief of development and several clerks implicated in vast DOB bribery scheme
Building Managers Also Accused of Giving Bribes to Remove Violations
City inspectors, landlords and contractors formed a 50-person network of graft that exchanged $450,000 in payoffs to get safety violations dismissed, procure phony eviction orders and get fast, favorable and sometimes nonexistent inspections, authorities said Tuesday.
Because of the schemes, a Brooklyn synagogue started building an addition with a cracked wall supported by twisted steel beams, tenants were improperly threatened with eviction so their landlords could raise rents and property owners weren’t immediately made to fix problems ranging from a defective hallway ceiling to missing smoke detectors, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and city Department of Investigation (DOI) Commissioner Mark Peters said.
The defendants include 11 Department of Buildings (DOB) workers, five Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) employees and one worker at the city Department of Small Business Services. Among them are Luis Soto, a Brooklyn HPD housing inspector; DOB clerks Elaine Cutchin and Tamarah Allen; and Janelle Daly, a buildings department filing representative and the wife of a former DOB chief of development for Brooklyn Construction. The former DOB chief was not named in the indictment.