City gave $37M to road-repair biz tied to Mafia

A CONTRACTOR whose former company was suspected of mob ties won $37 million in taxpayerfunded city contracts last year despite his history of blocking investigations into his prior company.

Richard Persico owns PCI Industries, a Mount Vernon firm that won three huge city contracts in 2017 to resurface New York City streets and install wheelchair-accessible sidewalk ramps in all five boroughs. He got the lucrative deals even though city investigators say in 2006 he blocked their efforts to look into mob involvement in an affiliated firm he co-owned 50/50 with his brother, Robert.

At the time, Robert Persico had been arrested on racketeering charges and identified by the FBI as an associate of the Gambino crime family. He was facing several federal charges, including paying off a corrupt official of a union representing employees of the brothers’ company, Persico Contracting & Trucking.

Last year the city awarded PCI Industries three contracts: $24.1 million from the Department of Transportation and two more totaling $12.9 million from the Department of Design & Construction.

Officials at both Transportation and Design conceded that that they only learned of the obstruction findings on Persico when contacted by The News. Officials later said the finding had been automatically deleted in 2011 from the city’s contract database known as Vendex.

In response to The News’ findings, Councilman Ritchie Torres, (D-Bronx), says he’ll propose legislation this week to “close the loophole in Vendex and require longer retention of information that could inform the city’s determination of who qualifies as a responsible bidder.”

He also chastised the city for striking the deal with Persico.

“The city’s decision to hand a $37 million check to a contractor with ties to organized crime represents a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars,” Torres said.

On March 2, 2005, Robert Persico was charged along with several alleged Mafia members with extorting a rival construction firm and trafficking in stolen luxury goods, including BMWs and Cadillacs. A week later he was charged separately with bribing union officials on behalf of Persico Contracting, the company the brothers co-owned.

At the time the company’s license to operate a trade waste business was about to expire, and the city Business Integrity Commission soon after received an application for renewal.

Richard Persico promised to answer the integrity panel’s questions and submitted paperwork claiming that Robert had ended his 50% ownership of Persico Contracting on March 1, 2005.

“Not coincidentally,” Integrity investigators noted, “the date of Robert’s purported resignation occurred the day before the indictment charging him with conspiring with a capo in the Gambino Organized Crime family was unsealed.”

The Integrity commission soon determined the documents