Two more New York City Housing Authority superintendents pleaded guilty Thursday to demanding “pay-for-play” bribes from contractors in a record-breaking corruption case filed earlier this year.
In a deal with the feds, Lindsay Wade, 53, of Brooklyn, and Orlando Pardo, 56, of Maywood, N.J., each copped to one count of solicitation and receipt of a bribe at separate hearings in Manhattan Federal Court.
Wade and Pardo were among 70 current and former employees of the nation’s largest public authority indicted by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams’ office in February for collectively raking in over $2 million in bribes in exchange for no-bid contracts valued at more than $13 million.
Between 2013 and late last year, the supers were responsible for approving no-bid “micro-purchase” contracts for under $10,000 — a way to save time compared with the public bidding process — for jobs in almost a third of 335 public housing complexes citywide, including in Harlem and Washington Heights, the Lower East Side, the Bronx, the Rockaways, north Brooklyn and Coney Island.
In what federal prosecutors say became a regular practice, supers for the scandal-plagued housing agency often held off on green-lighting repair jobs or construction work until their pockets were lined — driving up costs and letting problems fester in NYCHA residents’ homes to fatten their own wallets.
HARBUS RICHARD/FREELANCE NYDN
The Sotomayor Houses in the Bronx. (Harbus Richard for New York Daily News)
Pardo was a super at the Butler Houses in the Claremont section of the Bronx from 2016 through 2020 when he transferred to the Sotomayor Houses in Soundview, where he worked until August 2022. According to the feds, he banked at least 204 cash deposits totaling $108,000 between July 2016 and September 2023. Many were deposited close to when an unnamed cooperator in the case was awarded a no-bid contract for jobs at the Butler and Sotomayor complexes.
Wade was a super at the Albany Houses in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, from January 2019 until his arrest. According to the feds, an unnamed contractor who cooperated against Wade paid him between $500 and $1,000 in cash for seven no-bid contracts between July 2020 and May 2022.
The February busts in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and North Carolina constituted the largest number of federal bribery arrests in a single day in Department of Justice history. Wade and Pardo are among 49 who have taken plea deals so far.
“The actions of these individuals are a betrayal of the public trust, and an embarrassment to the civil servants who honorably and tirelessly serve our city every day,” NYCHA spokesman Michael Horgan said in a statement. “They created a culture of corruption, which adversely affects NYCHA’s dedicated workforce, who now must work twice as hard to regain the trust of residents and improve conditions at our developments. We have asked that the court impose an appropriate penalty that reflects the seriousness of this conduct and demonstrates that these actions have consequences which will deter future instances of corruption.”
Following the indictments earlier this year, NYCHA agreed to revamp its no-bid contract process and implement other measures to combat corruption. The agency didn’t respond to a Daily News request for comment on its progress toward that commitment.
Attorneys for Pardo and Wade did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.
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