An itch to snitch
City workers blowing whistle 90% of complaints from tips
DROPPING A DIME on crooked city workers is all the rage.
Over the past two years, anonymous snitches have led to almost 90% of the 27,538 total complaints of wrongdoing against city employees that were evaluated by the city Department of Investigation, new records reveal.
Tipsters — including local dogooders and a wealth of public servants ratting out colleagues — have flooded the DOI with 9,897 phone calls, 3,543 emails and 1,816 faxes, according to the agency’s records, which the Daily News obtained through the Freedom of Information Law.
The vast majority of tips don’t pan out, but the DOI opened 2,366 full-blown cases during that time, and stored other information for potential use if something else pops up.
The snitches have helped investigators crack sweeping conspiracies and pinch all manner of dirty workers — from greedy bribe-takers and thieves, to liars who fake injury to collect disability pay, to jail guards who sneak contraband into Rikers Island.
In-house snitches have played a key role, with the DOI citing the effect of some 4,600 anti-corrup- tion lectures it has given to city workers since 2002 urging people to blow the whistle.
“This outreach has been integral in generating tips for DOI, and leading to significant cases,” DOI spokeswoman Diane Struzzi said. The agency initiated just 103 cases over the period, mainly against workers who double-dip while collecting unemployment.
Tips have been pouring in from snitches across the city bureaucracy, and in reference to workers at nearly every city agency.
The Buildings Department has been particularly full of workers willing to dish on other workers, with tipsters there having spurred more than 80 arrests by the DOI since 2002, city officials said.
Some tips exposed major corruption schemes. In one case, an anonymous snitch made an inperson report that culminated in the collar of FDNY supervising inspector Carlos Montoya in a $1 million fraud ring involving day care centers.
Montoya, 54, admitted in Manhattan Federal Court in February that he accepted thousands in bribes to ignore fire safety hazards and help fraudulent day care operators get bogus Health Department permits and city funding. Twenty day care centers were closed and 15 people were arrested, including seven city workers.
A tip phoned in last October led to charges of heavy-duty thievery. The DOI arrested a city Housing Authority caretaker, Jesus Luciano, 36, after the tipster revealed an online ad to sell a Bobcat machine owned by the authority.
A criminal complaint against Luciano and his pal Robert Moccia alleges they placed online ads offering to sell $20,000 in city machinery and equipment, some of which was kept at a Housing Authority facility on Randalls Island. The cases are still pending.
And sometimes, tipsters stop would-be crooks in their tracks. In January, the DOI arrested a Bronx building owner, Andrew Kharran, 24, and his father, Ramdat Kharran, 53, on charges of giving a $500 bribe to an undercover city investigator posing as a Buildings Department employee.
The sting was initiated after a Buildings Department manager reported the two had allegedly offered him $1,000 to change records so they could partition the building’s basement.
Both men face seven years behind bars. rblau@nydailynews.com