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Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Yahoo
Founder of NYC nonprofit indicted for taking millions in kickbacks under city-funded COVID housing program
During the height of the pandemic, the founder of a city-funded nonprofit aiding people released from jail allegedly took $2.5 million in cash kickbacks, plus other gifts, including home and luxury car loan payments to funnel tens of millions in public funds to two corrupt businesspeople, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged Thursday. Julio Medina, the executive director and founder of Exodus Transitional Community, solicited and accepted the cash and gifts from hotel executive Weihong Hu, an associate of Mayor Adams' aide Winnie Greco, and security company president Christopher Dantzler. In exchange, Medina funneled to them about $51 million in city contracts meant to provide housing and other services to people released from jail during the pandemic, the indictment said. Photos contained in the indictment show Medina, a former chairperson of the city Board of Correction, allegedly accepting an envelope of cash from Hu at one of the hotels used to house people released from jail during the pandemic. The nonprofit received roughly $122 million through the emergency housing program overseen by the city, the indictment said. Under the program, people were released from jail into hotels and given reentry services. 'The defendants' brazen and illegal kickback scheme stole money from the City of New York that was intended to provide emergency housing and support services during the pandemic,' stated U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District John Durham. 'Shamefully, the defendants saw the pandemic as an opportunity to line their pockets with stacks of cash, finance a luxury vehicle, purchase homes and pay off personal debts.' Prosecutors allege the scheme began as early as April 2020 as the pandemic forced citywide shutdowns and led Mayor de Blasio to order the release of hundreds of detainees from the city's jails, driving the system's population to below 4,000 for the first time in memory. The scheme continued for the next four years, with regular, surreptitious meetings between Medina, Hu and Dantzler to exchange money. The indictment contains four surveillance photos of Medina meeting with Hu at one of Hu's hotels in Queens on Sept. 11, 2020. The images show Hu pulling a stack of cash from her wallet, placing it in a manila envelop and sliding it over to Medina, the indictment said. Both appear to be wearing Adidas tracksuits. Medina is wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap. Medina then passed over purported checks from the emergency housing program. Two days later, the indictment said, the checks were deposited in Hu-controlled accounts. Between August 2021 and September 2021, Dantzler, previously an electrician, allegedly paid $75,000 to pay off debts owed by Medina and family members, including a mortgage and a car loan. In November 2021, Hu used one of her businesses to finance a luxury car for Medina worth $107,000. She then made monthly payments of more than $50,000, the indictment said. In May 2023, Dantzler paid $750,000 to buy and renovate a home for Media upstate in Clifton Park, the indictment said. In return, Medina submitted fraudulently inflated budgets to obtain multiple contracts through the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, which was overseeing the housing program. The contracts were inflated to account for the cost of the bribes and kickbacks paid by Dantzler and Hu, the indictment alleges. To avoid detection of the scheme, Medina submitted false statements to the city claiming no one in Exodus received any financial benefit from the contracts, the indictment said. At one point, on May 22, 2023, Medina, worrying the scheme was unraveling, unloaded on one of Hu's employees in a text message. 'Don't call me no more. I don't f—ing trust you!' he ranted. 'You know I'm under investigation. You are f—ing with the wrong person!' One of Hu's hotels was raided by the feds in November, weeks after the mayor was indicted on corruption charges. Hu was a major fundraiser for the mayor's 2021 campaign and has extensive ties to Winnie Greco, a senior adviser to Adams whose homes were also raided by the feds in February 2024. As first reported by the news outlet The City, Greco at one point lived for free in a room at one of Hu's hotels that was supposed to be reserved for homeless individuals. Under a Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice homeless outreach program, the hotel room Greco stayed in was paid for with taxpayer dollars. Greco resigned from her position in the Adams administration in October 2024. Some donors who gave to Adams' 2021 campaign as part of fundraisers hosted by Hu were reportedly reimbursed by her, a practice known as 'straw donating' that is illegal.
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Yahoo
Founder of NYC nonprofit indicted for taking millions in kickbacks under city-funded COVID housing program
During the height of the pandemic, the founder of a city-funded nonprofit aiding people released from jail allegedly took $2.5 million in cash kickbacks, plus other gifts, including home and luxury car loan payments to funnel tens of millions in public funds to two corrupt businesspeople, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged Thursday. Julio Medina, the executive director and founder of Exodus Transitional Community, solicited and accepted the cash and gifts from hotel executive Weihong Hu, an associate of Mayor Adams' aide Winnie Greco, and security company president Christopher Dantzler. In exchange, Medina funneled to them about $51 million in city contracts meant to provide housing and other services to people released from jail during the pandemic, the indictment said. Photos contained in the indictment show Medina, a former chairperson of the city Board of Correction, allegedly accepting an envelope of cash from Hu at one of the hotels used to house people released from jail during the pandemic. The nonprofit received roughly $122 million through the emergency housing program overseen by the city, the indictment said. Under the program, people were released from jail into hotels and given reentry services. 'The defendants' brazen and illegal kickback scheme stole money from the City of New York that was intended to provide emergency housing and support services during the pandemic,' stated U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District John Durham. 'Shamefully, the defendants saw the pandemic as an opportunity to line their pockets with stacks of cash, finance a luxury vehicle, purchase homes and pay off personal debts.' Prosecutors allege the scheme began as early as April 2020 as the pandemic forced citywide shutdowns and led Mayor de Blasio to order the release of hundreds of detainees from the city's jails, driving the system's population to below 4,000 for the first time in memory. The scheme continued for the next four years, with regular, surreptitious meetings between Medina, Hu and Dantzler to exchange money. The indictment contains four surveillance photos of Medina meeting with Hu at one of Hu's hotels in Queens on Sept. 11, 2020. The images show Hu pulling a stack of cash from her wallet, placing it in a manila envelop and sliding it over to Medina, the indictment said. Both appear to be wearing Adidas tracksuits. Medina is wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap. Medina then passed over purported checks from the emergency housing program. Two days later, the indictment said, the checks were deposited in Hu-controlled accounts. Between August 2021 and September 2021, Dantzler, previously an electrician, allegedly paid $75,000 to pay off debts owed by Medina and family members, including a mortgage and a car loan. In November 2021, Hu used one of her businesses to finance a luxury car for Medina worth $107,000. She then made monthly payments of more than $50,000, the indictment said. In May 2023, Dantzler paid $750,000 to buy and renovate a home for Media upstate in Clifton Park, the indictment said. In return, Medina submitted fraudulently inflated budgets to obtain multiple contracts through the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, which was overseeing the housing program. The contracts were inflated to account for the cost of the bribes and kickbacks paid by Dantzler and Hu, the indictment alleges. To avoid detection of the scheme, Medina submitted false statements to the city claiming no one in Exodus received any financial benefit from the contracts, the indictment said. At one point, on May 22, 2023, Medina, worrying the scheme was unraveling, unloaded on one of Hu's employees in a text message. 'Don't call me no more. I don't f—ing trust you!' he ranted. 'You know I'm under investigation. You are f—ing with the wrong person!' One of Hu's hotels was raided by the feds in November, weeks after the mayor was indicted on corruption charges. Hu was a major fundraiser for the mayor's 2021 campaign and has extensive ties to Winnie Greco, a senior adviser to Adams whose homes were also raided by the feds in February 2024. As first reported by the news outlet The City, Greco at one point lived for free in a room at one of Hu's hotels that was supposed to be reserved for homeless individuals. Under a Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice homeless outreach program, the hotel room Greco stayed in was paid for with taxpayer dollars. Greco resigned from her position in the Adams administration in October 2024. Some donors who gave to Adams' 2021 campaign as part of fundraisers hosted by Hu were reportedly reimbursed by her, a practice known as 'straw donating' that is illegal.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
NYC jail watchdog group warns new Rikers high-security unit is ‘keg of dynamite'
The Department of Correction came under fire Tuesday from a city oversight board for quietly creating a new high-security unit on Rikers Island that may violate a law limiting the use of solitary confinement. The new Special Management Unit at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center limits detainees to just seven hours a day outside of their cells, DOC General Counsel James Conroy said during a Board of Correction meeting. However, Local Law 42, the law limiting solitary, requires 14 hours per day of out-of-cell time. The unit, which opened Wednesday, currently has just five occupants, though the capacity is 40. Board members reported they observed a botched roll-out in visits on Sunday and Monday. 'We are very disturbed by the fact that the board was never privy to the plans with respect to this new unit,' said board member Barry Cozier, a retired state judge. 'We observed numerous operational deficiencies.' Board chairperson Dwayne Sampson questioned creating the new unit without laying the proper groundwork. 'It seems like a keg of dynamite ready to explode,' he said. One thing the board did not question is whether the Adams administration had the right to create a unit that violates the solitary-confinement law — an issue now the subject of a bitter legal battle. The City Council sued the administration Dec. 9 to stop Mayor Adams' practice since July of using 'emergency' executive orders to block elements of the law. The case is pending. The board members focused instead on their contention that correction officials appeared not to have set up the unit for a range of basic services, such as recreation, a law library and health clinic visits, and even access to razors. While the detainees are supposed to be let out of their cells at 10 a.m., a captain and a security team are required to be present to do pat-frisk searches and cell searches — a factor that builds in delays, Cozier said. 'They are at the mercy of that,' he added. The roughly 35 correction officers assigned to staff the unit had yet to be fully trained, board vice chairperson Helen Skipper said. 'I find it hard to believe that you opened the housing unit with officers who are not trained properly,' she said. Skipper recounted an incident where the 64-year-old mother and 8-year-old daughter of a detainee in the unit had to wait six hours for a visit on Sunday. She said they were told the visit room had to be completely empty for the visit to take place. 'That's an unreasonable restriction,' she said. Conroy countered that the federal monitor tracking violence and use of force in the jails approved creation of the new unit as 'sound correctional practice,' as did the state Commission on Correction. He said the unit was intended as a midway step between the highest security units for men, dubbed RESH, at the Rose M. Singer Center, and the Rikers general population. He said the unit's officers had already received five training sessions. 'We have an obligation to control violence in the jails,' Conroy said. Meanwhile, the City Council sent a letter Monday to Judge Laura Taylor Swain, who is weighing whether to appoint an outside receiver to manage the city's jails, urging her to make sure the Council's powers to pass binding legislation are preserved. Swain is presiding over Nunez v. the City of New York, a 2011 class action lawsuit about violence and staff use of force in the jails. The letter also calls on the judge to choose a receiver 'aligned' with the legally mandated closure of Rikers by 2027 — though, in practice, the construction of the four new borough jails intended to replace Rikers is already years behind schedule. In addition, three new amicus curiae briefs were filed this week that oppose selection of a receiver with ties to city government. The city proposed last month that sitting Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie also serve as receiver — an idea immediately rejected by the lawyers representing the plaintiffs. The amicus briefs were filed by a group of influential former city officials, including former First Deputy Mayor Stanley Brezenoff, the New York City Bar Association, and the Vera Institute. 'This Rube Goldberg construction signals that the receiver is subordinate to — not independent of — the Mayor, his government and the political forces that inevitably and always are present in government,' the Brezenoff group wrote, referring to the cartoonist known for drawing fanciful contraptions.
