BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25111, 30 December 1942, Page 4

BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION

BROOKLYN REVELATIONS CITY OFFICIALS INVOLVED (Rec. 11p.m.) NEW YORK, Dec. 28. The four-year inquiry into charges of official corruption in the New York City Borough-of Brooklyn, the longest and most sweeping study of municipal misconduct in American history, resulted in fines and restitutions of over 2,000,000 dollars, against which the costs of the inquiry were only 1,000,000 dollars. A special correspondent of the New York Times says, the report, based on the testimony of 3390 witnesses, revealed lurid accounts of gangland bribery of-policemen and city officials in murder and kidnapping cases, and blackmail rackets,, as well as the " rigging " of contractors' bids, defrauding the taxpayers of over 1,000,000 dollars. The inquiry started in an atmosphere that required night patrols to guard the prosecutors, at whose headquarters the file rooms containing incriminating evidence affecting gangsters and racketeers were equipped with burglar alarms. The report disclosed that many public officials earning large salaries did not keep bank accounts, and lived far beyond their incomes, and without direct proof of the source of their money. The report also makes 19 recommendations designed to close the existing loop-holes in the laws by which city employees are immune from various types of prosecution.