Federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged more than 60 current and former employees of the New York City Housing Authority with bribery and extortion, a sweeping indictment of a troubled organization.
The unsealing of the complaints was announced early Tuesday, with additional details on the scope of the investigation to be unveiled by Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, at a late morning news conference.
The defendants were charged with “accepting cash payments from contractors in exchange for awarding NYCHA contracts,” a news release said. It added that the more than 60 federal bribery charges amounted to a single-day record for the Department of Justice.
Last year, officials at the housing agency estimated that it would need some $78 billion over the next two decades to renovate the aging system, which is home to hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers in an expensive city starved for affordable apartments. Complaints about aging buildings, rodents, leaky pipes and broken elevators have dogged the agency, which operates more than 270 developments.
In 2022, NYCHA collected just 65 percent of the rent it charged, the lowest percentage in its nearly 100-year history.
This is a developing story and will be updated.