NYCHA bribery crackdown ends with convictions of all 70 workers charged The Queensbridge North Houses in Queens, one of the city’s largest public housing developments. Richard Levine/Corbis via Getty Images By Giulia Heyward Published Nov 25, 2025 55 comments Share We rely on your support to make local news available to all Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2025. Donate today Seventy New York City Housing Authority employees have been convicted of bribery, fraud or extortion after what federal prosecutors called the largest single-day corruption sweep in the Department of Justice's history. The convictions come after all 70 were arrested and charged in February 2024 with accepting cash bribes in exchange for awarding NYCHA repair contracts, bypassing the agency’s competitive bidding process. According to federal prosecutors, 56 of the defendants pleaded guilty to felony charges, 11 pleaded guilty to misdemeanors and three were convicted at trial. Collectively, they accepted more than $2.1 million in bribes in exchange for steering over $15 million in contracts. As part of the plea agreements or verdicts, the workers have been ordered to pay more than $2.1 million in restitution to NYCHA and forfeit an additional $2 million in criminal proceeds, authorities said. The scheme affected nearly a third of NYCHA’s 335 developments across the five boroughs, according to Jocelyn E. Strauber, commissioner of the city’s Department of Investigation. “Today’s guilty plea is the latest step in exposing a scheme that exploited NYCHA’s operations, shortchanged its communities, and siphoned trust and resources from NYCHA residents — New Yorkers who deserve better,” said Ricky Patel, special agent in charge of the Homeland Security Investigations New York Field Office. The defendants, all NYCHA staff at the time, took cash kickbacks ranging from $500 to $2,000, typically about 10% to 20% of each contract's value. In many cases, they demanded payment up front or before signing off on completed work so that the contractor could be paid by NYCHA. Attorney information for the defendants was not immediately available. RELATED STORIES

In City Hall Housecleaning, Mamdani Asks 179 Adams Staff Members to Quit

Zohran Mamdani will be sworn in as mayor on Jan. 1. His request for resignations targeted political appointees.

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Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, requested the resignations of staff members in Mayor Eric Adams’s administration.Credit...Graham Dickie for The New York Times

By Dana Rubinstein

Published Nov. 25, 2025Updated Nov. 26, 2025, 2:39 p.m. ET

Zohran Mamdani, the incoming mayor of New York City, has requested the resignations of 179 staff members in Mayor Eric Adams’s administration, Mr. Mamdani’s spokeswoman confirmed on Tuesday.

The requests target political offices in City Hall, including people who work in the office of intergovernmental affairs, in communications and in other offices overseen by the city’s deputy mayors. Employees, including many whose tenure at City Hall predate the Adams administration, have been told that they will no longer have jobs starting Jan. 1.

The move comes as Mr. Mamdani’s transition team cranks into higher gear, with less than six weeks to go before he is sworn in as mayor. He has already named Dean Fuleihan, a longtime government hand, as his first deputy mayor and has retained the police commissioner, Jessica Tisch. On Monday, he unveiled a 400-person transition advisory group, divided into 17 committees.

“As is standard practice for a mayoral transition, the mayor-elect and his transition team are working to build their City Hall plan, which includes new staff in key roles to ensure they can deliver effectively on their agenda,” Dora Pekec, Mr. Mamdani’s spokeswoman, said in a statement.

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It is typical for new administrations to clear out political appointees who served the prior mayor, though it is not always done with as much lead time or so extensively.

That Mr. Mamdani’s housecleaning should be so thorough might be a testament to the unusual extent to which Mr. Adams filled City Hall with longtime friends whose principal qualification often seemed to be loyalty to the mayor.

The political pendulum swing from Mr. Adams to Mr. Mamdani is also pronounced.

Ursulina Ramirez, who helped lead Bill de Blasio’s transition in 2013, said Mr. Mamdani’s housecleaning was reminiscent of Mr. de Blasio’s after he succeeded Michael R. Bloomberg.

That change in administration also marked a notable political shift.

“From my recollection, this is normal,” she said. “To be fair, a lot of people transitioned anyway. They were like, ‘Don’t worry I’m already transitioning Jan. 1.’”

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Fabien Levy, a spokesman for Mr. Adams, said that the outgoing mayor handled things differently when he transitioned into office in 2021, “keeping on longtime public servants who served in the Bloomberg and de Blasio administrations.”

“We’re extremely disappointed that working-class New Yorkers who dedicated their lives to bringing us out of Covid, managing the asylum-seeker crisis, and doing so much more for their fellow New Yorkers were not even considered for roles in the incoming Mamdani administration,” Mr. Levy continued.

He said the employees “should not be the victims of political gamesmanship” and called the decision to part ways with them “the incoming Mamdani administration’s first governmental mistake.”

Certainly, some current City Hall staff members have seen the writing on the wall, and have been preparing résumés and seeking new job opportunities.

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Others, including some of the less political policy employees, have been living in limbo, unsure if they will be able to stay on in a Mamdani administration or have to find new employment.

Mr. Mamdani has a lengthy roster of individuals eager to work for him at City Hall. According to Ms. Pekec, the transition has received roughly 70,000 résumés.

Dana Rubinstein covers New York City politics and government for The Times.

See more on: Zohran Mamdani, Eric Adams