Posted on: February 01, 2025 03:00 PM

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Former NYCHA superintendent sentenced to 48 months in prison for accepting more than USD300000 in bribes

NYCHA is the largest public housing authority in the country, providing housing to New Yorkers across the City and receiving over $1.5 billion in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) every year. When repairs or construction work at NYCHA housing require the use of outside contractors, services must typically be purchased via a bidding process. However, when the value of a contract was under a certain threshold, designated staff at NYCHA developments, including superintendents, could hire a contractor of their choosing without soliciting multiple bids.  With either type of contract, a NYCHA employee needed to certify that the work was satisfactorily completed in order for the contractor to receive payment from NYCHA.

From at least 2014 through at least July 2023, MERCADO served as a superintendent at multiple NYCHA housing developments in Queens.  For approximately nine years, MERCADO demanded and received hundreds of thousands of dollars from multiple contractors in exchange for arranging for those contractors to receive contract work at developments where MERCADO was employed or in order for MERCADO to sign off on work that had been completed.  Although MERCADO initially demanded that contractors pay him 10% of the contract value in order to receive the work, MERCADO eventually doubled the amount that contractors had to pay from 10% to 20% of the value of the contract.  The contractors typically paid MERCADO between $500 and $2,000 for each contract on hundreds of occasions.  In total, MERCADO accepted approximately $329,300 in bribes in connection with at least $1,886,000 in contract work at NYCHA developments.

Of the 70 individual NYCHA employees charged with bribery and extortion offenses in February 2024, 60 have pled guilty, and three have been convicted after trial.

From DOJ