Four city officials extorted at least $1 million in bribes from bus companies that transported special-education students - the latest chapter in the sordid, decades-long corruption of a mobbed-up labor union, authorities said yesterday.
Fat envelopes stuffed with cash were demanded from bus operators in exchange for more lucrative routes, with officials turning a blind eye to safety violations and getting a head's up on vehicle inspections, the authorities said.
"The amount of cash payments . . . ranged from hundreds of dollars per year from certain bus-company owners, up to tens of thousands of dollars per year from [others]," according to an indictment released yesterday by US Attorney Michael Garcia in Manhattan.
Accused are Neil Cremin, 61, of Queens; Ira Sokol, 69, of Brooklyn; George Ortiz, 63, of The Bronx, and Milton Smith, 55, of Tobyhanna, Pa. -(Photos displayed in the same order top to bottom)
The first two worked as supervisors with the Department of Education's Office of Pupil Transportation. Smith was employed as an inspector. Ortiz is a former supervisor and no longer works for the department.
All four dealt with school-bus operators involved in the transportation of special-ed students.
One scam involved the suspects wrongly designating certain bus runs as "extended," meaning the routes start or finish outside the contracted times. Such a designation netted bus owners extra money, some of which they would kick back to the honchos, officials said.
The fraud allegedly spanned from the mid-1990s up until last year.
The busts are the latest in the government's attempt to dismantle the Genovese crime family's reputed stranglehold on Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which includes bus drivers and mechanics, sources said.
Infamous elderly Mafioso Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianniello, who is believed to have controlled the union, was tossed behind bars in 2006 on a racketeering rap. The four new suspects were arraigned in Manhattan federal court yesterday on charges of extortion, bribery and conspiracy.
They pleaded not guilty and were released on $100,000 bond.
Carrie Tendler, the lawyer for Smith, said, "He looks forward to addressing the charges against him."
Each of the others declined comment, as did their lawyers.
Not so the department.
"If the charges against the four are true, they betrayed the public's trust, and this is a disgrace," said DOE spokeswoman Margie Feinberg.
A co-worker of Sokol's said FBI agents descended on office's headquarters in Long Island City, Queens, at around 6:30 a.m. yesterday to nab him.
"He's a really nice guy," the stunned employee said. "A hundred people I thought it might have been, but not this guy."
Additional reporting by Kate Sheehy
