What Will Happen to NYCHA's 70 Arrested Employees Now?

DESIREE NIKFARDJAM, HOST: And back with a story about a New York City corruption scandal, I’m your host, Desiree Nikfardjam. The NYPD arrested 70 current and former NYC Housing Authority employees for bribes and no bid contracts that were accepted over a ten year period. The city’s housing authority is the largest in the country, with over 300,000 tenants under their supervision. I spoke with Bennet Gershman, a professor of law at Pace University, who formerly worked at the Anti-Corruption Office, about how these backdoor

deals went unnoticed for so long and where the case could go from here.

BENNET GERSHMAN: Now, look, this is not an investigation that's going to take a month or a year. And especially if you feel that this is an ongoing investigation, you're not gonna rush into it. You're not going to rush indictments because if you think it's, it's a very, very widespread organization. Um, you know, you're going to take your time and investigate maybe the upper, if there are upper echelon people here involved, how far up does it go?

NIKFARDJAM: Right, and so I'm curious like how could something like this be prevented? Because it's, I mean, it's one of, it is the largest public housing authority in the country. So how do we make sure that, you know, things like this aren't just getting forgotten and, and unheard of?

GERSHMAN: Look, how do you make sure that people are honest? How do you make sure that people are law abiding? You know, uh, look, people like to cheat. It's sometimes, it's very lucrative for people to cheat. I, you know, one way you do it is by deterrence. If you get these people, you convict them, you send them to jail for 20 years, that might be a message that's sent out to the, uh, community, don't cheat. You, if you do and you get caught, You're going to pay the price and it's going to be a very steep price.

NIKFARDJAM: And so I'm curious, um, how are people living in public housing supposed to, you know, Recover from something like this and what kinds of, you know, uh, responses can, we can be given to people who have been scammed for over 10 years, for example.

GERSHMAN: I think they're distressed. I think they feel that they have been, uh, victimized. I think they should be relieved at least, that the government law enforcement community was on top of it and it, while they didn't make arrests right away, they ultimately. We've got these corruptors, uh, and these corruptors are going to pay. And it took a while, but they did. They did stop this and at least have some faith that you're, you're, you know, your law enforcement, uh, officials are, are on the job. They may not be doing the best job possible, but you never can do that, but at least they're doing it. And I would say, by the way, that, you know, resources do matter. If, you know, and resources have always been a problem for police departments and law enforcement community in general. You know, where, where budgets are tight, all, uh, public agencies are going to suffer.

NIKFARDJAM: And so where do we go from here?  What, what can we see happening?

GERSHMAN: Look, it's going to, it's going to be a massive influx of cases into the, uh, criminal justice system. . You're probably going to have a, a large number of these individuals plead guilty because if they plead guilty, they know that they're going to reduce their punishment. Uh, and so if they go to trial, they go to trial and then we'll watch the trials and see what happens. But that's the way it usually works with corruption cases.

NIKFARDJAM: Professor Gershman, thank you so much for speaking with us today.

GERSHMAN: Happy to do it.

NIKFARDJAM: Once again, that was Bennet Gershman. I’m Desiree Nikfardjam, and you’re listening to Uptown Radio.