Dozens of New York public housing workers charged in record corruption case

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged more than 60 current and former employees of the New York City Housing Authority with bribery and racketeering, a sweeping indictment against a troubled organization.

The disclosure of the complaints was announced early Tuesday, with additional details about the scope of the investigation to be revealed by Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, at a late morning news conference.

The defendants were accused of “accepting cash payments from contractors in exchange for awarding NYCHA contracts,” according to a press release. It added that the more than 60 federal bribery charges amounted to a single-day record for the Justice Department.

Last year, housing association officials estimated that about $78 billion would be needed over the next 20 years to renovate the aging system, which is home to hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers in an expensive city hungry for affordable apartments. Complaints about outdated buildings, rodents, leaky pipes and broken elevators haunt the agency, which operates more than 270 projects.

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.