Joba Cortorreal, former supervisor at the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, pleaded guilty to 26 counts of Bribe Receiving in the Third Degree and one count of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree. Cortorreal was indicted in 2008 after the DOI launched wide scale Section 8 fraud investigation upon 19 involved individuals.
Between 2003 and 2008, Cortorreal and two other Department of Housing Preservation and Development employees were allegedly selling federally-funded Section 8 vouchers issued by the City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
Cortorreal and her two co-defendants were allegedly accepting cash bribes of $5000 each from 16 New York City residents in exchange for the Section 8 rent vouchers and subsidies. Cortorreal purportedly was able to procure these vouchers by falsifying their Housing Preservation and Development records, specifically falsifying ineligible applications as emergency relocation applications.
As a result of Cortorreal’s and her co-defendants’ alleged actions, an approximate total of $80,000 was defrauded from the Section 8
If convicted of all the charges, Cortorreal faces more than 20 years of imprisonment.
