Joy Harris, a former superintendent for the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), was convicted of federal bribery and extortion charges on Thursday, October 17th. Harris, who worked at various NYCHA developments from 2015 to 2021, was found guilty of soliciting tens of thousands of dollars in bribes from contractors in exchange for awarding them no-bid contracts. The conviction followed a one-week trial before United States District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan.
Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, condemned Harris’s actions, stating, “Corruption is an insidious crime—difficult to detect, corrosive in its effect on government agencies, and damaging to public trust in government institutions. Joy Harris’s years-long abuse of her position to demand tens of thousands of dollars in bribes betrayed her duty to NYCHA residents, the City of New York, and taxpayers.”
Harris’s role involved overseeing NYCHA projects that did not require competitive bidding if the contracts were below a certain threshold. She took advantage of this authority by demanding bribes of 10% of the contract value, typically between $500 and $1,000, depending on the size of the job. In total, Harris accepted bribes in exchange for awarding hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts.
NYCHA is the largest public housing authority in the United States, providing housing to over 400,000 New Yorkers and receiving over $1.5 billion annually in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Harris’s actions undermined the integrity of this critical institution and the services it provides to vulnerable residents.
Harris, 49, faces up to 10 years in prison for federal program bribery and up to 20 years for extortion. Her sentencing is scheduled for February 2025. This case is part of a broader federal investigation into corruption within NYCHA, with 55 out of 70 indicted current and former employees having already pleaded guilty or been convicted.
This prosecution was led by the Public Corruption Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, with significant investigative contributions from the New York City Department of Investigation and Homeland Security Investigations.
