The Department of Investigation, New York City's anti-corruption watchdog, arrested more people in the last 12 months than in any year in the agency's 137-year history.

The 822 arrests in the fiscal year that ended Wednesday is a 12% increase from the prior one. The investigations have run the gamut, probing officials at the highest levels—resulting in the indictment of a sitting councilman—to a steady stream of charges against low-level employees for a variety of schemes.

In the past year alone, the agency received 13,500 complaints and managed a caseload of more than 2,200 investigations, officials said.

Rose Gill Hearn, the agency's commissioner since 2002, said the rising arrest numbers doesn't necessarily signify city government is more corrupt.

"There is always going to be some number of people who take advantage and steal and take kickbacks and engage in all sorts of schemes," said Ms. Hearn, a former federal prosecutor. "I don't think there is an increase in corruption whatsoever. I think the increase in [arrest] numbers is the byproduct of us being smart and robust and targeted in our efforts."

In the past 20 years, the agency has arrested roughly 7,000 people on corruption-related charges, but more than 4,000 of those arrests have occurred since Mayor Michael Bloomberg tapped Ms. Hearn to take over the agency.

In recent years, the agency has focused attention on publicly funded nonprofits, exposing fraud by insiders and public officials. The agency's not-for-profit vendor fraud unit, a group of forensic auditors and investigators who follow the money trail, has netted more than 30 arrests and convictions since it was created in 2007.

In the past fiscal year, there were significant developments in some of the agency's highest-profile cases, such as:

• In February, Councilman Larry Seabrook was indicted on a raft of charges including allegations he funneled hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars from nonprofits he controlled to relatives. Most notably, he was accused of doctoring a $7 deli receipt for a bagel sandwich and a soda, so that he could be reimbursed $177. Mr. Seabrook has pleaded not guilty.
• In December, former Councilman Miguel Martinez was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to federal corruption charges in connection with swindling taxpayers of $106,000.
• In May, former state Sen. Efrain Gonzalez Jr. was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy and fraud. He unlawfully used two nonprofit organizations to pay personal expenses, including membership fees for a vacation club and rent payments for a luxury apartment in the Dominican Republic. A federal judge called his story an "American tragedy."
• In March, Asquith Reid, a chief of staff to former Councilman Kendall Stewart, was sentenced to three years of probation after pleading guilty to embezzling $145,000 in discretionary funds allotted to a nonprofit. A second Stewart staffer, Joycinth Anderson, was sentenced in October to four months of home confinement and two years of probation for her role in the scheme.

Ms. Hearn said her office has now beefed efforts to file charges against the citizens who offer bribes. "We're now an equal opportunity investigative arm," she aid, with a laugh, "and we will arrest the briber and the 'bribee,' as it were."

By Michael Howard Saul
The Wall Street Journal
July 1, 2010

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