2 City Employees Admit Taking Bribes From Bridge Contractor
March 25, 2008
A former New York City transportation official and an engineer pleaded guilty to bribery charges on Monday, admitting they took part in a scheme to help a company that was seeking millions of dollars in a contract dispute over a bridge renovation.
The pleas were entered in United States District Court in Brooklyn by Balram Chandiramani, 65, who was the director of movable bridges for the city’s transportation agency, and by Uday Shah, 46, an assistant civil engineer on the agency’s staff.
The two men conspired with representatives of the Kiska Construction Corporation, which had been hired for a $118 million project to rebuild the Third Avenue Bridge, which connects Upper Manhattan with the Bronx, federal prosecutors said.
A dispute arose over the contract, and in 2007, the company filed a claim with the city for $16.5 million. While the case was pending, Kiska and the city tried to negotiate a settlement. During those talks, the two defendants gave Kiska inside information on the city’s strategy, and they advised the contractor on how to increase the settlement by millions of dollars, prosecutors said.
In exchange, Mr. Chandiramani expected to receive $400,000 in bribes from the company and had collected $60,000 before investigators foiled the scheme, according to the United States attorney for the Eastern District, Benton J. Campbell. Mr. Shah also expected bribery money and collected $5,000 before being arrested, the prosecutors said.
The scheme unraveled when a Kiska executive handling the project was arrested on undisclosed charges and became an undercover witness.
“What Chandiramani and Uday Shah did not know was that their corrupt actions were being watched by the Department of Investigation and our law enforcement partners,” said the city’s investigations commissioner, Rose Gill Hearn. City officials blocked payment of the claim.
Each defendant faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the prosecutors said.
Source: NY Times
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