Federal Agents Arrest 2 NYC Fire Chiefs Over Alleged Bribery Scheme

Firefighters watch as their fire engine enters the FDNY Engine 281/Ladder 147 station in the Flatbush neighborhood in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on Oct. 29, 2021. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Federal agents have arrested two New York City Fire Department (FDNY) chiefs on charges related to an alleged bribery scheme they entered into with a third individual that involved expedited fire safety inspections.

The arrests of Anthony Saccavino and Brian Cordasco, and the revelations in the indictment, happened days after the resignation of Edward Caban, a New York Police Department commissioner accused of corruption charges in connection with his brother’s dealings with local nightclubs, bars, and restaurants.

Before their arrests for the alleged bribery and kickback scheme that reportedly netted more than $190,000, Saccavino and Cordasco were chiefs in the department’s Bureau of Fire Prevention (BFP), which has oversight of the installation and inspection of fire safety systems—including smoke detectors, fire alarms, and sprinklers—for both companies and individual residences.

According to an unsealed indictment prepared by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, over a roughly two-year period beginning in 2021, the alleged schemers colluded with a third man, named in the indictment as CC-1, who worked in the FDNY for two decades and retired prior to the hatching of the scheme.

They allegedly used a company, referred to in the indictment as the CC-1 Company, which CC-1 had started shortly after his retirement in 2019. Businesses in the area that needed inspections of their fire safety systems could pay CC-1 to “jump the queue” for fire safety inspections, which can be subject to lengthy wait times.

Customers went to the company in the hope of obtaining expedited inspections, the indictment states. Saccavino and Cordasco then instructed their own subordinates within the BFP to give priority to the inspections that the CC-1 Company had agreed to handle on behalf of those paying customers. In some cases, the two chiefs exercised their executive authority as BFP higher-ups to push subordinates to give priority to requests under CC-1 Company auspices, and in other cases simply lying to create a pretext to speed things up.

At the time that the scheme operated, staffing shortages and lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic had led to a backlog of inspection requests, the indictment states. The services of “expediters” like the CC-1 Company were in high demand, it adds.

In these circumstances, the CC-1 Company saw a heavy inflow of customers who were often filing representatives working on behalf of building developers or owners and/or their agents.

According to the indictment, CC-1 Company paid more than $100,000 to Saccavino and $90,000 to Cordasco.

The FBI began to take an interest in the scheme and conducted interviews with both the BFP chiefs in 2024. According to the indictment, they both made false statements to cover up their role in the scheme.

The FDNY did not immediately respond to a request for comment.