Two high-level FDNY chiefs used a City Hall practice of expediting fire inspections for favored big-money building owners, including deep-pocketed donors to Mayor Adams, as cover for a scheme that secretly netted them nearly $200,000 in illegal off-the-books payments, federal prosecutors charged Monday.
Anthony Saccavino and Brian Cordasco, two former ranking members of the Bureau of Fire Prevention, were arrested and charged with speeding up inspections for customers who paid a former firefighter as an “expediter” who helped them get approvals for fire safety systems needed to open new spaces and buildings.
In turn, prosecutors alleged, those property owners steered cash to them, sometimes inside the FDNY’s headquarters in Brooklyn, sometimes at steakhouse dinners in Manhattan.
“They allegedly created a VIP lane for faster service that could only be accessed with bribes,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams told reporters at a press conference announcing the indictment. “That’s classic pay to play corruption, and it will not be tolerated by this office.”
Their alleged scheme coincided with a controversial program the FDNY dubbed the “DMO List,” through which City Hall requested expedited inspections for favored individuals at a time when required inspections for fire alarms and other fire suppression systems took eight to 10 weeks to get done.
This list originated during the administration of former Mayor Bill de Blasio to speed up inspections for schools, hospitals and homeless shelters. Meanwhile, the pandemic exacerbated a growing backlog of demand for the inspections, according to authorities. The inspections are supposed to be conducted on a first come first serve basis, according to Williams.
Under Mayor Eric Adams, as THE CITY reported, some big money entities, including real estate developer SL Green, Amazon, Meta and Hudson Yards, shot to the top of the list.
The indictment brought by Williams referenced the existence of the Deputy Mayor for Operations list, stating that “As requested by City Hall officials, the BFP in fact gave priority to certain projects appearing on the City Hall List.”
At a press conference, Williams stated, “I’m not going to provide my personal view whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing as a matter of policy. I will say that these defendants, as we allege in the indictment, used the City Hall list or the DMO list, to effectively excuse or cover up the way in which they were pressuring other folks to expedite the matters that were being bribed to expedite.”
At one point Cordasco purported to be an opponent of attempts to prioritize special projects, according to prosecutors, who in their court papers cite an April 2022 email in which he claimed City Hall requests to expedite inspection of a major Midtown Manhattan development “were extremely unfair to the applicants who have been waiting at least 8 weeks for their inspections.”
In that case, Cordasco was referring to a project that had suddenly rocketed to the top of the DMO list — Hudson Yards. But in other cases, Cordasco was telling others within the Bureau of Fire Prevention that specific projects he was pushing to expedite were on the DMO list when, in fact, they were not, prosecutors alleged.
On Monday, Adams continued to insist that the list did not exist, stating at an unrelated press conference that the DMO “was the terminology that the FDNY used, we stated it then and we’re going to state it it again, that this administration did not have a list named like that. And we made that clear, we stand by that.”
Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi also denied the existence of the list within City Hall.
“There is not a DMO list, and there is a system that was set up by this administration to systemically address what had been a long standing backlog,” she told reporters Monday.
The DMO list surfaced late last year when other former FDNY chiefs filed a lawsuit against the department, claiming that they’d been sidelined by then Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh after complaining about the preferential treatment demanded by City Hall.
One project that wound up on the list in June 2022 was a high-end sushi restaurant, Joji, that SL Green was trying to open inside its premier office tower One Vanderbilt next to Grand Central Terminal. SL Green CEO Marc Holliday had raised more than $30,000 for Adams during his 2021 campaign for City Hall.
The indictment cites four examples where Saccavino and Cordasco accepted payments to move customers up the list, including a Brooklyn apartment building, two hotels near John F. Kennedy International Airport, and a high-end restaurant in Manhattan.
At the Monday press conference, Department of Investigation Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber told reporters that the FDNY has reinspected all of the approximately 30 locations tied to the alleged scheme.
“While DOI did not find evidence that the defendant’s conduct compromised fire safety, we provided the FDNY with a list of addresses potentially involved in the scheme to reinspect, and that reinspection now has been completed,” she said.
The probe began in Spring 2023 when FDNY officials notified the city’s Department of Investigation of the possible scheme, according to Strauber.
“All city employees and agencies are legally required to report allegations of corruption and misconduct,” she said. “And we do our job best when agencies communicate with us early and often raising any areas of concern to our attention.”
The alleged expediter, Henry Santiago Jr., is cooperating with the authorities and has pleaded guilty to charges related to his role in the case, according to Williams.
Kavanagh resigned last month and was replaced on an interim basis by Robert Tucker, a former prosecutor and longtime supporter of the FDNY. In a statement released an hour after the arrests were revealed, Tucker stated, “Every member of the FDNY takes a sworn oath to conduct themselves honestly and ethically. Anything less will not be tolerated. The Department will fully cooperate with any ongoing investigations.”
Officials made clear on Monday that the investigation is ongoing.
