70 arrests highlight corruption in US’s largest public housing authority

The largest public housing authority in the nation was infested by a “classic pay-to-play” culture of corruption where workers dispensed repair jobs to contractors willing to pay bribes, a prosecutor said Tuesday as authorities revealed they had arrested 70 current and former employees for illegally pocketing over $2 million.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams told a news conference that the corruption was so widespread over at least the last decade that it affected nearly a third of the 335 housing developments citywide where 1 in 17 New Yorkers lived.
Bribery and extortion charges led to a roundup of current and former employees of the New York City Housing Authority that represented the largest single-day bribery takedown in the history of the U.S. Justice Department, Williams said.