Two high-ranking New York Fire Department chiefs were arrested early Monday on federal bribery and kickback charges, accusing them of taking nearly $100,000 each in a scheme to speed up safety inspections, people familiar with the matter said.
The two chiefs, whose homes and offices at fire headquarters were raided by federal agents and city investigators in February, are expected to appear in U.S. District Court in Manhattan later Monday, the sources said.
The chiefs — Brian E. Cordasco, 49, and Anthony M. Saccavino, 59 — were responsible for overseeing safety inspections at construction sites. Neither man could be immediately reached for comment Monday morning. It was unclear whether either had retained attorneys in the case, which has been under investigation since last summer.
There is no indication that the case is connected to any of the four separate federal corruption investigations surrounding Mayor Eric Adams, his campaign and some of his top aides. The investigation into the mayor, however, is being conducted by the same agencies that have investigated police chiefs and also involves fire inspections, multiple sources said.
The charges against the leaders are likely to increase pressure on Mr. Adams and his administration, as it faces a series of corruption investigations that last week led to the resignations of two senior officials in three days.
The mayor’s police commissioner, Edward Caban, whose phone was seized days earlier by federal agents as part of a corruption investigation centered on his twin brother, resigned Thursday.
On Saturday, the mayor’s chief legal adviser, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District with a reputation for integrity, also resigned, a decision that two people familiar with the matter said was largely due to frustration that the mayor was not following his advice on some personnel matters.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams is overseeing the case against the chiefs as well as three of four corruption investigations involving the mayor and his aides.
Mr. Williams is expected to announce the charges at a news conference Monday morning. He will be joined by the city’s Department of Investigation Commissioner, Jocelyn E. Strauber, and the FBI’s New York office chief, James E. Dennehy, whose agencies jointly conducted the investigation.
Firefighters placed both men on modified duty and removed them from their duties supervising inspections after raids at Mr. Cordasco’s Staten Island home and Mr. Saccavino’s Harlem home. Both men, an official said, remained on modified duty.
The investigation into the chiefs has been ongoing for at least a year and focuses at least in part on whether they accepted bribes to help speed up or influence fire inspections on construction projects, people familiar with the matter said at the time.
Investigators were looking into whether each man received $97,000 from a recently retired firefighter, the people said. One of the payments was made to a limited liability company registered at Mr. Cordasco’s home address, the people said. It was unclear what the payments were for and whether the retired firefighter made them in his own name or someone else’s name.
City payroll records show that in 2023, the fire department paid Mr. Saccavino $241,119 and Mr. Cordasco $235,462.
Dana Rubinstein contribution to the report.
