'Lucchese-tied' building inspectors resign
Corrupt city building inspectors -- some with ties to a powerful crime family -- videotaped taking bribes at construction sites across the city have resigned, although they have yet to be indicted on criminal charges, Mayor Bloomberg said today.
The mayor's comments come on the same day that The Post broke the story that some of the inspectors were taking payments under the table, while some were seen dealing cocaine and prescription pills while on duty.
"None of the people [involved in the alleged bribe scandal]... are currently working for the Department of Buildings. They have resigned," said Bloomberg.
The corrupt Department of Buildings workers -- who lined their pockets by ignoring violations or expediting construction and building work permits -- and about two dozen Lucchese crime-family captains, soldiers and associates are slated to be arrested later this month, sources said.
Bloomberg said none of those involved had been "indicted yet," and did not give an exact timeline as to when that would happen. "We're not going to tolerate any of this," he added.
The nearly two-year probe grew out of a 2007 New Jersey case involving a Lucchese faction that ran a staggering $2 billion-a-year gambling operation and supplied drugs and cellphones to Bloods gang members in state prisons, The Post reported today.
That probe -- which netted 32 wiseguys -- soon spread across the Hudson River into the family's Big Apple hierarchy, prompting surveillance and wiretapping by the NYPD and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office, the sources said.
The probers, who made hundreds of hours of recordings, quickly found mobsters taking bets and conducting loan-sharking operations worth tens of millions of dollars.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/mob_tied_building_inspectors_resign_DzY8F1SkiQrVYv3VcCgLBL
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