In a newly unsealed indictment, federal prosecutors announced that 11 people and one company have been charged with wire fraud, conspiracy, bribery and other charges in connection with CityTime, a Web-based system in the works for the past decade.
The project — initially projected to cost $63 million — ballooned to more than $600 million. A group of contractors working on the project is alleged to have overbilled and paid kickbacks on the project.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara called the corruption “epic in duration, magnitude, and scope.”
“As alleged, CityTime served as a vehicle for an unprecedented fraud, which appears to have metastasized over time,” Bharara said.
Millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks were allegedly laundered through overseas shell companies, according to the New York Daily News.
For more details, read the newspaper’s ongoing coverage and the prosecutor's offical announcement of the indictment.
