Firefighter in iconic photo with Bush after 9/11 attacks dies at 91

US attorney: 70 arrests highlight corruption in housing authority

NEW YORK – In announcing 70 arrests, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday that the largest public housing authority in the nation was infested by a “classic pay-to-play” culture of corruption that dispensed repair jobs valued at under $10,000 to contractors willing to pay bribes.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams told a news conference that the corruption was so widespread that it affected nearly a third of the 335 housing developments citywide where one in 17 New Yorkers lived.

Bribery and extortion charges led to a roundup of current and former employees of the New York City Housing Authority that represented the largest single-day bribery takedown in the history of the U.S. Justice Department, Williams said.

Bob Beckwith, a retired New York City firefighter who was captured in a famous photo standing next to President George W. Bush in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City, has died. He was 91. His wife, Barbara Beckwith, said he had cancer and died Sunday night in hospice care, The Associated Press reported.

When terrorists attacked the World

Trade Center, Beckwith was 69 and had been retired for seven years following a 30-year career from Ladder Company 164 in Queens. Nonetheless, he rushed to ground zero to help with the search and rescue efforts.

For those activities, Beckwith became known as a hero. He stood with Bush as the president gave a speech to the first responders who had been working nonstop in the hours and days after the hijacked planes destroyed the Twin Towers. tried to prevent the construction of an abortion clinic in Illinois by crashing his car into a building and attempting to set it on fire, authorities said.

After his prison sentence, Philip Buyno must pay $327,547 in restitution and will be under supervised released for three years, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Springfield, Illinois. He pleaded guilty in September to a federal charge of attempting to use fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce.

In May, officers responding to an alarm found Buyno “stuck inside a maroon Volkswagen Passat” that he had backed into the entrance of a building in Danville, a city near the border with Indiana, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.