Queens DOB Official Charged with Corruption

An investigation into corruption within the city Buildings Department has extended to Queens with the arrest of the borough’s former Chief Plan Examiner, who resigned last month.

The city Department of Investigation announced the arrest of James Cheng on charges of accepting cash payments from a Flushing architect in exchange for reviewing buildings plans before they were submitted to the Buildings Department.

Cheng, 55, of Woodmere, was a former Chief Plan Examiner with the DOB until he resigned in November. On Monday, the DOI announced that Cheng has been charged with receiving reward for official misconduct, a felony, and official misconduct, a misdemeanor for allegedly accepting cash payments from Sung Ho Shin, a state registered architect.

Shin, 49, of Syosset, has been charged with giving unlawful gratuities, a misdemeanor. Upon conviction, the felony charge is punishable by up to four years in prison and the misdemeanor charges by up to a year’s incarceration.

“As charged, these defendants betrayed their professional responsibilities and brazenly disregarded the rules,” said Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the DOI. “everyone should know that offering and accepting money in exchange for a city employee giving preferential service is a crime that will end in arrest and prosecution.”

Cheng, who is also a state certified architect, began working at DOB in June 1997 as a Plan Examiner. He resigned in February 2001 to take a similar job with the city School Construction Authority until March 2003, when he returned to DOB as Chief Plan Examiner in the department’s Kew Gardens borough office.

In that post, Cheng was paid an annual salary of $99,149 until he resigned in November. His duties included meeting with the public, including architects and engineers, reviewing project records and building plans for compliance with city building code and assigning them to be reviewed by plan examiners.

According to the criminal complaints, Cheng reviewed zoning analysis for building plans that had not yet been submitted to DOB in exchange for cash payments from Shin over a two-week period in 2008. The investigation revealed that Cheng knew and told Shin that he was not allowed to engage in that type of activity.

The DOB released the following statement from Commissioner Robert LiMandri: "These allegations, if true, are clearly unacceptable and are not condoned in any way. Mr. Cheng resigned from the Department last month, and we are currently reviewing his jobs as a precaution.

"The Department has taken significant steps to increase integrity and transparency, including an online property database detailing inspection results, mandated integrity training for all employees and the use of GPS technology to track on-duty inspectors. Since 2002, tips from our staff have led to more than 70 arrests by the City’s Department of Investigation, exemplifying the honest work of so many employees who are dedicated to serving this City."

Man Charged with Lying About HIV Status

Allegedly Faked Document to Trick Girlfriend

By Conor Greene

A Queens man who is HIV positive has been charged with using a fake document he claimed was issued by a local health care facility to convince a woman to have unprotected sex with him.

Duane Lang, 47, of Richmond Hill was arrested last week and charged with first-degree reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a forged document, according to the city Department of Investigation. If convicted, he faces up to seven years on the felony charge and a year in prison on the misdemeanor count.

According to the charges, his unnamed girlfriend refused to have unprotected sex with Lang unless he could provide medical proof that he had recently tested negative for HIV/AIDS. Lang, who has been HIV-positive since 2002, allegedly provided her with a fake document from the AIDS Center of Queens County showing that he had been tested in December 2007 and was not infected.

As a result, the woman engaged in unprotected sex with Lang between eight and ten times from December 2007 to March 2008, according to authorities. In March, the woman became suspicious and questioned him about the authenticity of the document. At that point, Lang admitted that it was forged and that he is HIV positive. The medical director at ACQC reviewed the document and confirmed that he had not signed it and that his name was misspelled on it.

“With deceit and depravity, the defendant repeatedly endangered the life of a person he supposedly cared for,” said Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the Department of Investigation. “Rarely have we seen a forged document used in way that is so directly and personally destructive to another human being. The consequences for that kind of conduct include arrest, criminal prosecution and possibly a prison sentence.”

The case is now being prosecuted by the office of Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

“This is a tragic situation and serves as a reminder that things may not always be as they seem,” said City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden. “Even if you have talked to your partner about HIV status, the best way to protect yourself from HIV and other sexually transmitted infections is to use a condom every time you have sex."

Former Queens Woman Sentenced to 130 Months for Adoption Fraud

By Conor Greene

A former Queens woman has been sentenced to nearly 11 years in prison for defrauding the state and city out of more than one million dollars through an adoption scheme. She is now facing criminal charges in Florida for allegedly abusing nearly a dozen adopted children.

Judith Leekin, 63, of Port St. Lucie, Fla., pleaded guilty in May to stealing about$1.68 million in adoption subsidies meant to pay for the care of her 11 adopted children, many of who were physically or mentally disabled. On Tuesday, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced she has been sentenced to 130 months in prison by District Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan federal court.

“For almost 20 years, Judith Leekin manipulated a system intended to protect the welfare of New York City’s neediest children,” said U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia. “Today, she will begin paying for the years that she spent caring more about the $1.68 million she stole than she did for the children she was entrusted to protect.”

Leekin is now to return to Florida, where she is scheduled to appear in court in August on abuse charges stemming from her treatment of the children under her care. She is accused of beating, starving and restraining the children and faces life in prison if convicted on those charges.

Judge Berman also ordered Leekin to surrender two homes she owns in Florida and pay back the stolen money. While the plea agreement finalized in May called for a prison sentence of six-and-a-half to eight years, the judge was allowed to sentence her for up to 20 years for each of the two counts.

In the weeks leading up to the sentencing, officials including Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the city Department of Investigations and attorneys representing the abused children wrote to the judge urging him to issue a harsh sentence.

“Leekin perverted New York City’s adoption subsidy program and in so doing crush the childhoods of children she adopted by causing them irreparable pain and suffering, including by keeping the children locked away,” she said following the sentencing.

Leekin adopted the children in New York between 1988 and 1996 before moving for Florida. When applying to the state Office of Children and Family Services and the city Administration of Children’s Services, she used four different fake names and lied about how many other children were in her care. She “used the money to support a lavish lifestyle for herself” while neglecting the children, said authorities.

While living in Queens with 12 children (authorities are unsure as to the whereabouts of the twelfth child) in 1997, Leekin forced the 11 adopted children to live in the basement and forbid them from going outside or to school. Several were restrained while in bed to prevent them from getting up.

After moving to Florida, the 11 children “lived in a similar manner,” with 10 of the children forced to live in a storage room next to the garage, only allowed to enter the house to use the bathroom or kitchen. Several “were restrained using plastic ties,” said authorities.

(AP Photo/St. Lucie County Sheriff's Dept., File)