Fuel Oil Companies Scammed Millions From the NYPD, FDNY, Sources Say
NEW YORK CITY — Five of the city's largest fuel oil companies allegedly swindled the NYPD, the FDNY and some of Manhattan's largest developers in a multimillion-dollar citywide scheme, DNAinfo New York has learned.
The companies are suspected of taking worthless but hazardous waste oil and "blending" it with fuel oil before delivering the diluted product to customers, including NYPD precinct houses, FDNY firehouses, other city agencies, local hospitals and many of the city’s largest residential buildings, as well as smaller homeowners and mom-and-pop businesses across the boroughs, sources said.
In addition to the “blending scheme,” the companies are also suspected of rigging meters on trucks to inflate the number of gallons delivered to customers, thereby charging them for fuel they did not receive, sources said.
“There are multiple scams involved,” one source said, without elaborating. “It’s a big scheme. . . and a big deal.”
Investigators from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Rackets Bureau, the NYPD Organized Crime and Control Bureau and the city’s Office of Business Integrity raided the five companies' offices Wednesday and seized roughly 50 trucks along with a small mountain of files and electronic equipment.
"We think this is a systemic, citywide issue," another source observed.
The joint investigation started more than a year ago, sources said, but no arrests are expected for at least several more months and no mob ties have been found connected to the schemes.
Among the companies raided yesterday was Castle Oil in the Bronx. Sources would not disclose the other companies' names.
Two years ago, several developers in Manhattan filed a lawsuit against Castle, alleging that the company was mixing used engine fuel it purchased from gas stations, garage and oil burner services and mixing it with heating oil, and then passing it off as high-grade heating oil.
Waste fuel not only contains hazardous elements, but it has little commercial value.
According to state law, distributors must use only pure distillate, residual oil, re-refined oil or a blend as heating oil, lawyers noted in court papers.
"Even if oil is re-refined for use as heating oil, it is criminal for sellers of No. 4 and No. 6 to misrepresent the composition of the oil they sell or to fail to disclose that the oil they sell has been reclaimed (used and filtered) or re-refined," lawyers for the developers said in court documents.
Castle officials vehemently denied the allegation in the lawsuit, maintaining that the quality of its fuel met all standards when it left its premises. A representative for Castle was not immediately available for comment.
The NYPD and Manhattan District Attorney's office declined to comment.
More Neighborhood Stories
Here's What Investigators Think Caused the East Village Explosion
MANHATTAN — While investigators try to determine what caused a massive explosion in the East Village that leveled three buildings, a theory has emerged as to what happened leading up to the blast.
Mayor Bill de Blasio confirmed Friday that allegedly improper work on a gas line at 121 Second Ave. was the likely cause of the explosion that set fire to four buildings and injured dozens of people. Two people were still missing.
Investigators who have spoken to workers and blast victims, and culled building records related to the explosion, believe that workers somehow damaged a gas line that was being improperly used to distribute gas throughout 121 Second Ave., which exploded Thursday at 3:15 p.m.
Sources explained that the ground-floor sushi restaurant Sushi Park and another unit in the building were receiving gas from an existing Con Edison feed.
They believe that this existing line may have been improperly used to feed more units than it was supposed to while renovations went on in the building.
Meanwhile, workers had installed a second, larger pipe last August to increase the gas supply to the building to accommodate growing demand for hot water, cooking and laundry dryers, sources said.
But that work had repeatedly failed inspections.
On Thursday, Con Edison reinspected the new pipe at roughly 2 p.m.
Investigators believe a worker may have turned off gas to the original, improperly used pipe, before Con Edison arrived in order to prevent them from discovering that it was being improperly tapped, sources said.
Con Edison workers inspected the new larger pipe, but once again it did not pass muster, and Con Ed refused to turn on gas for its use, and they departed.
Investigators suspect that once they left, a worker went back to the original pipe, and somehow damaged the pipe when he turned the gas back on and created the leak, which exploded a short time later.
General contractor Dilber Kukic, 39, was performing work there about the same time, he told DNAinfo. He returned about an hour later when the building's owner, Maria Hrynenko, told him that people had smelled gas, Kukic said.
The plumber and the owner's son, Michael Hrynenko, 29, went to check the smell, Kukic said.
“As soon as we opened the basement door, there was an explosion, a fire,” he said. "[The place] was full of smoke. The debris was on top of me."
The subcontractor at the was identified by Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce as Jerry Ioannidis, owner of Beta, Plumbing and Heating in Astoria. Several of his workers have been disciplined by the Department of Buildings for their work in recent years, records show.
The fire was still smouldering as of Friday afternoon and the city had tallied 22 injured, with four people still in critical condition. Six of those injured were fire fighters. No fatalities had yet to be reported but at least two people were missing.
Once the fire is out, the Department of Buildings and other city agencies will survey the scene and gather facts about what caused the explosion, officials said.
Addition reporting by Gwynne Hogan.
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2 NYPD Officers Who Edited Wikipedia Pages Face Slap on Wrist
NEW YORK CITY — The NYPD has identified — but will likely only issue minor reprimands against — two veteran police officers who allegedly used department computers to change Wikipedia pages on several high profile police abuse cases, including the death of Eric Garner, officials and sources said on Monday.
“Two officers, who have been identified, were using department equipment to access Wikipedia and make entries,” Commissioner Bill Bratton said at an unrelated press conference on Monday afternoon. “I don’t anticipate any punishment, quite frankly,” he added.
The two officers — whose names were not released — do not work in Police Headquarters, and are assigned to two different units from one another, sources said.
They are expected to be spoken to by Internal Affairs Bureau investigators, but barring any additional infractions, sources said they will not face any punishment for what they did to the Wikipedia pages.
Since Wikipedia is a publicly accessed and edited web encyclopedia, it's not inappropriate for NYPD officers or anyone else to visit pages and edit references they believe are technically inaccurate, sources said.
“That is their First Amendment right,” a law enforcement source said.
The NYPD doesn’t have a policy specific to accessing Wikipedia but is in the process of reviewing its social media rules to give additional guidance to its personnel, Bratton said.
The two NYPD officers are likely to only face a minor reprimand for using department computers for personal activity, sources said.
“We are quite clear that when you are using city computers it is supposed to be for city business. This was not authorized business,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday.
Capital New York reported Friday that 85 IP addresses registered to 1 Police Plaza logged hundreds of edits to Wikipedia entries on victims of alleged police brutality, dating back as many as 10 years. They include pages for the "Death of Eric Garner," "Stop-and-Frisk," "Sean Bell" and "Amadou Diallo."
The NYPD only maintains records that can trace computer use for one year, and they were able to track the two veterans who tinkered with the recent Eric Garner changes.
For example, the Garner entry was reportedly edited on Dec. 3, 2014, shortly after a Staten Island grand jury decided not to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo for his death.
“Garner raised both his arms in the air” was replaced by “Garner flailed his arms about as he spoke,” while the sentence “Garner, who was considerably larger than any of the officers, continued to struggle with them,” was added to the entry, Capital reported.
Two edits were also made to the word “chokehold,” which was replaced by “respiratory distress” and "chokehold headlock" in separate mentions. Other Wikipedia users later removed some changes.
Police officials directed none of the changes, a department spokesman said.
The NYPD plans to distribute new smart phones this year to all its officers and the rank -and-file will be reminded at that time that the patrol guide prohibits any personal use on department phones and computers.
Most NYPD computers don't allow access to the Internet, a source said.
Ben Fractenberg contributed to this story.
Ben Fractenberg contributed to this story.
Retired Corrections Officer Shooting Puts Spotlight on Citizen's Arrest Law
NEW YORK CITY — The state laws that will be used to determine if a retired corrections officer will face charges in this week's fatal subway shooting sets the bar extremely high for civilians to use deadly force and limits the actions they may take in making arrests, legal experts say.
Gerald Shargel, a noted defense attorney, said that “in fact, in New York, you actually have a duty to retreat if you are in fear of getting hurt, and if you use deadly force you can only use it to meet deadly force.”
In Tuesday’s fatal encounter, retired guard William Groomes, 69, got into a verbal and physical dispute with two unarmed young men while riding a 4 train heading into Brooklyn.
Groomes later told investigators he was cursed at, punched in the head, and then twice pushed onto an empty seat, after which he announced he was an “officer” and was going to arrest them.
As a retired correction officer, Groomes does not have peace officer status and so is treated as a civilian by the law. Retired police officers also are not considered peace officers.
Under New York state law, peace officers have the power to make warrantless arrests and use physical and deadly force in making an arrest or preventing an escape.
Pulling out a licensed .380 Ruger, Groomes followed the duo onto the platform at the Borough Hall station in Brooklyn and shot and one of them, Gilbert Drogheo, 32, during the confrontation.
Groomes has not been charged, but Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson is weighing presenting evidence to a grand jury.
Experts say the law is extremely narrow in permitting the use of deadly force.
According to the penal law for a citizen's arrest, a civilian “may use physical force, other than deadly physical force,” when they “reasonably believe” they need it to make an arrest or prevent someone’s escape from custody.
The statute also stipulates that they can only use deadly force if they are confronted with “the use or imminent use of deadly force.”
Shargel pointed out that another penal code states that before someone uses deadly force, they have to decide if they can safely retreat and defuse the situation without resorting to killing someone.
“What might really hurt Mr. Groomes is that New York does not have 'Stand Your Ground' and basically requires people to avoid using deadly force," he explained.
Based on the facts so far, Shargel noted that “Mr. Groomes essentially went looking for” the person he wound up killing.
Another legal expert who is a former top prosecutor agreed that it would be difficult for Groomes to argue that he was justified — unless evidence shows the death came at the end of a second separate “encounter” during which he can prove he had no other choice but firing.
Barry Slotnick, who successfully defended so-called "Subway Vigilante" Bernie Goetz for shooting four teens who surrounded him in a subway car decades ago, explained that the state toughened the statutes in the wake of Goetz's legal victory.
Prior to the infamous 1980s case, the law allowed a defendant to claim he or she had the right to fire because of "a personal perception" of imminent danger.
After Goetz, the state raised the bar by ruling the fear could not merely be "personal," but had to be the kind that the "average reasonable person" would have in that same situation.
Slotnick said this seemingly subtle shift may make all the difference in Groomes' defense, and whether the 69-year-old ex-jail guard faces his own possible imprisonment.
Pat Lynch Is Out of Touch With Union Members' Needs, Challengers Say
NEW YORK CITY — Patrick Lynch, the president of the NYPD's largest union who recently had a high-profile clash with Mayor Bill de Blasio, is up for reelection this June and faces challengers from within his own ranks.
The 51-year-old head of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association believes his "outspoken" leadership style is an asset for his members. But one of his challengers says Lynch is out of touch with the 23,000 members of the rank-and-file, and that his clashes with City Hall have distracted him from core police issues.
Brian Fusco, an officer from Brooklyn South who's heading a slate of candidates for union leadership, says Lynch has taken his eyes off their bread-and-butter concerns while creating unnecessary friction with the administration.
“The job of the president of the union is to address the injustices and be able to sit with the Police Commissioner and get things changed,” Fusco said, adding that he thought Lynch's attacks on the mayor in the wake of the murder of two NYPD officers in Bed-Stuy were counterproductive.
“He knew he would get some media attention and amped it up,” Fusco said.
“I don’t know if he got caught up in the frenzy. Sometimes you say things with too much emotion and cross a bridge you can't get back over. You have to get along with the mayor.”
Fusco questioned why Lynch has not gotten a contract, or successfully challenged the NYPD’s onerous disciplinary system and police pension inequity issues involving new “Tier 3” officers disabled in the line of duty.
On Monday, “On The Inside” reported exclusively that Lynch says he “has no regrets” about taking on de Blasio — saying he was expressing his members' raw sentiment when he claimed that the mayor had "blood on his hands” following the deaths of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.
“One thing that I brought into this organization is being an outspoken leader, that we will defend you and represent you, even in controversies,” Lynch said.
“We pride ourselves on being out there all the time, fighting the fight every day, whether it is City Hall or not. I brought that into the organization.”
Lynch also insisted that his aggressiveness helped force de Blasio into beginning to support pro-police positions, such as buying new bulletproof vests, vetoing a City Council bill that would have made chokeholds illegal and deciding to fight frivolous lawsuits against the NYPD.
His union has chosen to go to the statewide Public Employment Relations Board to work out a contract for a third time, arguing that they can get a better contract that way than by negotiating with the city directly.
He also said he has been challenging the Tier 3 system and fighting for legislation on the pension disability controversy.
NYPD Officer Ronald Wilson is also mounting a challenge to Lynch, but he has yet to announce his slate. When he announced his challenge last month, Wilson, a 27-year veteran now in the Traffic Division, chided Lynch for the way he blasted de Blasio and he criticized the PBA president for failing to get a contract or improving working conditions.
If successful, Wilson would be the PBA’s first black president.
Fusco’s running mates include three Bronx union representatives presently under indictment in the NYPD's ticket-fixing scandal. They maintain Lynch did little to prevent their arrests or stop the department from taking punitive actions against scores of other officers snared in the probe.
Lynch supporters point out that demonstrations outside the courthouse were widely covered — “their headlines were we were too vocal,” Lynch said — and the union has hired the best lawyers to fight the charges.
Nonetheless, Fusco says it is simply time for a change.
“My opponents are not new faces," Lynch said. "I've done the job every day and that has worked for me, and I believe the members know it has worked for them.”
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