Crooked contractors caught
Nine NYCHA contractors busted for bribing supers for repair work
BY BEN BRACHFELD
Nine contractors have been
indicted of bribing NYCHA superintendents
in exchange for
small repair contracts, Brooklyn
District Attorney Eric Gonzalez
announced Monday, noting
that the problem is likely
far more widespread.
Over a two-year period, city
investigators went undercover
as supers in two Brooklyn complexes,
Red Hook Houses in Red
Hook and Lafayette Gardens
in Clinton Hill, aiming to snag
deviant contractors attempting
to provide kickbacks in exchange
for securing an infl ated
contract to conduct small fi xes
such as window repairs, chainlink
fence installation, and tile
work.
The nine defendants proffered
35 bribes totaling about
$20,000 cash, two $500 gift
cards, and four bottles of Johnnie
Walker scotch (three black
label and one white label), the
DA said.
Gonzalez added that he
hopes the indictments send a
message to other supers and
contractors not to engage in
similar schemes that defraud
the taxpayers and negatively
impact NYCHA residents’ quality
of life.
“Honest contractors stand
no chance of doing the work if
you have to corrupt the process
in order to be awarded the contract,”
Gonzalez said. “The residents
of NYCHA often live in
conditions that are deplorable,
and we defi nitely need a system
that works to their advantage
to get things done quickly,
but they deserve to have the
best contractors working to fi x
items inside NYCHA without
this corrupt process.”
Under current NYCHA regulations,
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“micro-purchase”
contracts worth less than
$10,000 can be awarded by supers
without going through a
competitive bidding process,
which is intended to allow for
small repairs to be addressed
quickly, so residents do not
have to wait for the conclusion
of a long, arduous bidding war.
The fl ip side, though, is that
small contracts are rife for
graft similar to those in the indictments.
Margaret Garnett, commissioner
of the Department of Investigation,
said that while the
work was completed in all but
one of the cases, allowing bribery
to become the cost of doing
business sends a message that
contractors do not have to perform
their work to the best of
their ability.
“When it becomes commonplace
for bribes to be paid, that
really removes any incentive to
do good work and be responsive
and provide value for the taxpayers’
dollar,” Garnett said.
Some of the defendants were
captured on videos secretly recorded
by city investigators.
One video shows Chatranjit
Singh, of Fine Touch Construction
in Queens, offering a $500
gift card to the investigator posing
as a super, who then offers
work on doors at Lafayette Gardens.
Another shows defendant
Guriqbal Singh (no relation to
Chatranjit) allegedly handing
over $600 in cash in an elevator,
and getting agitated when
he sees a security camera,
which the undercover investigator
claims is not working.
Another shows defendant Davinder
Singh (seven of the nine
defendants are named Singh,
but only some are related to
others; Davinder is not related
to Chatranjit or Guriqbal) questioning
an investigator, which
the DA alleges to be scoping
out whether he’ll take a bribe,
and 15 minutes later handing
over what the DA alleges to be
$1,000.
Garnett said DOI has issued
policy recommendations
for NYCHA to implement to
address the “vulnerabilities”
exposed in the indictments.
Those include moving responsibility
for doling out smalldollar
contracts from supers
to NYCHA’s central offi ce and
adopting a “fi xed-price list”
for common micro-purchase
repairs to prevent contractors
from stiffi ng the housing authority.
In a statement, NYCHA
spokesperson Rochel Leah
Goldblatt said that NYCHA is
currently implementing a new
procurement oversight entity
called Purchasing, Logistics,
and Inventory (PLI), which will
be tasked with both approving
micro-purchases and approving
purchases within larger contracts.
PLI onboarded a senior
director in August and “development
purchasing teams” are
expected to be in place by 2022.
The Red Hook Houses. WikiMedia
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