World News | Former NYC Buildings Commissioner Surrenders in Bribery Case
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. New York City's onetime top building-safety official took cash, New York Mets tickets, a discount on a luxury apartment and other bribes from a real estate developer, a restaurateur and others and repaid them with favours, prosecutors said Wednesday.
New York, Sep 13 (AP) New York City's onetime top building-safety official took cash, New York Mets tickets, a discount on a luxury apartment and other bribes from a real estate developer, a restaurateur and others and repaid them with favours, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Former Buildings Commissioner Eric Ulrich was awaiting arraignment on bribery, conspiracy and other charges; six co-defendants were charged with bribery. Defense attorney Sam Braverman said Ulrich intended to plead not guilty.
Besides serving as Mayor Eric Adams' buildings chief, Ulrich was a city councilman and an adviser to the first-term mayor. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accused Ulrich in a statement of illegally “monetizing each elected and appointed role he held in New York City government.”
“At every possible turn, he allegedly used his taxpayer-funded positions as city councilmember, then senior mayoral advisor and finally Department of Buildings commissioner to line his pockets,” said Bragg. He and Adams are Democrats. Ulrich, who raised money for Adams' campaign, is a Republican.
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Adams isn't accused of any wrongdoing.
Ulrich resigned from his post as city buildings commissioner last November, six months after his appointment, amid reports that he was being questioned by prosecutors as part of an investigation into illegal gambling and organized crime.
The investigation focused in part on Ulrich's relationship with a Brooklyn real estate developer, Kevin Caller. Prosecutors said Caller rented a luxury apartment — complete with furniture and a free parking space — to the buildings commissioner at a reduced price in exchange for political favors.
Among them: trying to get a zoning change that suited Caller's plans for a Queens property and prompting an inspection of a low-income apartment building next door, in hopes that it would be ordered vacated, according to prosecutors.
Caller's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said his client rented an apartment to Ulrich at market rate and never requested anything in return.
Ulrich joined the Adams administration in January 2022, initially as a senior advisor, before taking over the buildings agency — a department that enforces building codes, issues permits and responds to structural emergencies in a city with more than a million buildings.
Previously, Ulrich represented a Queens district in the City Council, first winning his seat in a special election in 2009.
While on the council, he reported to the city's Conflicts of Interest Board that he had won between USD 5,000 and USD 47,999 gambling in 2015, the Daily News reported. (AP)
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