Bribe raps in B’klyn buildings
THE SHADY homeless shelter operator that oversaw a Bronx apartment where a broken radiator scalded two toddlers to death last year by a broken radiator is no longer running any of the city’s controversial cluster-site housing. And it may end up out of the shelter business all together.
The Bushwick Economic Development Corp. lost control of its last cluster-site shelter apartments on Oct. 2, according to the Department of Homeless Services.
Cluster housing is where homeless families are placed in private apartment buildings. Many of the units have been criticized for being rundown.
Since February, DHS has been working to cut down BEDCO’s city contracts after two young girls — 1-year-old Scylee Vayoh Ambrose and 2-year-old Ibanez Ambrose — were killed in their bedroom in December 2016 when a radiator malfunctioned. The apartment was a cluster-site unit.
Three of BEDCO’s traditional shelters were either shut down or transferred to new operators earlier this year.
The city also stopped using the nonprofit to run commercial hotels to house the homeless.
BEDCO, which has received more than $116 million since 2004, still has city contracts to run three other traditional shelters.
However, the city has indicated it’s taking steps to phase out those shelters as well, according to sources.
DHS has enforced a corrective action plan that BEDCO must follow to keep operating the three shelters, the agency said. If the nonprofit fails to adhere to the plan, the city can yank the contracts immediately.
BEDCO’s executive director, Frank Boswell, did not respond to a request for comment.
The city’s Department of Investigation is probing BEDCO’s finances and its role into the death of the two sisters on Dec. 7, 2016.
The Department of Investigation also ripped the nonprofit in a 2015 report for poorly maintaining a cluster site on East 174th St. in the Bronx.
Mayor de Blasio has vowed to end cluster site housing by 2021. WITH NEW buildings popping up across Brooklyn, some corrupt property owners paid off a pair of city inspectors to avoid code violations, the Department of Investigation charged Wednesday.
The two Department of Buildings inspectors were among 14 people hit with charges in the latest crackdown on the resilient corruption that’s plagued the city’s building sector for decades.
The bribes to one inspector included a $100 pair of earrings for his girlfriend, while the other was caught on tape soliciting cash in anticipation of Mother’s Day.
Property managers and owners paid bribes to dodge violations such as inoperable exit signs in eight buildings across Brooklyn and one in Flushing, Queens, Department of Investigations Commissioner Mark Peters said.
“Fabricating documents, lying about conducting inspections or about who is doing the work has serious consequences,” Peters (photo) said. “For the defendants, it's about expediting the construction timeline. It’s about making an extra buck.”
Also charged was a private sector asbestos inspector who took fees of $1,000 to $3,500 to fudge inspections and a master plumber who sold the use of his license.
At one point, asbestos inspector Alexander Kogan certified to the city that a Brooklyn building had no asbestos after DOI observed him making a four-minute inspection. The Department of Environmental Protection later went in and discovered asbestos.
Thirteen of the 14 were arrested in a pre-dawn sweep. All will be prosecuted by Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.
The schemes were uncovered in 2016 as the Department of Investigations and the DA investigated National Grid workers taking payoffs to sign off on rigged gas meters. Investigators heard Department of Buildings inspector Hiram Beza instructing a building owner to cancel inspections with an honest inspector and reschedule when he would handle the examination.
In return, Beza got free kitchen renovations and driveway upgrades to his private home, a criminal complaint filed Wednesday alleged.