A series of much-anticipated indictments unsealed in Manhattan Supreme Court Wednesday accused former New York City Buildings Commissioner Eric Ulrich of accepting or soliciting $150,000 in bribes – including season tickets to the Mets and a painting by the last surviving apprentice of Salvador Dali – by brazenly exploiting his elected and appointed government positions.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said “at every possible turn,” Ulrich, 38, used each of his taxpayer-funded positions – City Council member, senior adviser to Mayor Adams, and the city’s Buildings Department boss – to line his pockets with money he mostly spent on gambling.
“He is charged alongside businessmen, friends and associates, who paid him in return for access and favors,” Bragg said.
“Whether appointed or elected – and Ulrich was both, over the years – when you enter public service, you are bound to abide by laws, ethics and regulations that are essential to the public trust. Flying in the face of all of that, Eric Ulrich, we allege, monetized each elected and appointed role that he held in New York City government. Each and every one.”
Ulrich pleaded not guilty before Judge Daniel Conviser to charges including conspiracy, receiving bribes and offering a false instrument for filing. He was released without bail under the provision that he surrender his passport and inform the court of any travel out of town for longer than three days.
“Throughout the [investigation], Mr. Ulrich has maintained his innocence. And today’s proceedings do nothing to change that. His integrity remains intact,” his attorney, Sam Braverman, said after the hearing.
“When thousands of phone calls and documents are cherry-picked and cut into small bits and then viewed with eyes biased toward guilt, anyone can be made to look guilty. Mr. Ulrich unequivocally denies these charges and looks forward to his day in court — where the only evidence that will be considered will be tested by the process of trial,” Braverman added.
Among the six others charged in five indictments naming Ulrich as a defendant were brothers Joseph and Anthony Livreri, 55 and 51, respectively, who co-own Aldo’s Pizzeria in Queens; tow truck magnate Michael Mazzio, 54; Brooklyn real estate developer Mark Caller, 51; Buildings Department filing representative Paul Grego, 73; and former city Corrections Officer Victor Truta, 53.
All of them except Mazzio entered not guilty pleas at their arraignments Wednesday. He did not appear in court due COVID symptoms, according to his attorney. Conviser set a tentative day for his arraignment for Sept. 22.
In exchange for a premium season ticket package with the Mets worth $10,000, Ulrich tried helping Mazzio resolve licensing problems with the city Department of Consumer and Worker Protections when he was a senior adviser to Adams and assisted his daughter in getting a pay raise and a better job at the city Corrections Department, Bragg alleged the two-year investigation by his office and the city Department of Investigation found.
Ulrich, who has spoken about his gambling addiction, spent a lot of his bribery proceeds at public casinos and private, illegal ones, including the 89th Street Café in Ozone Park, owned and operated by Joseph Livreri, who Bragg’s office said acted as an intermediary between him and his co-conspirators to insulate him from scrutiny. Livreri was let go from his position earlier this summer, The News reported.
“He also pulled strings to make sure that the Livreri brothers’ companies, including a pizza parlor and a bakery, passed inspections and stayed open for business,” the DA said, fast-tracking a health inspection after their businesses were shut down for health code violations.
“And in less than seven months as the Department of Buildings commissioner, a position of significant trust for our city’s development – not just the safety of our residents, but also our workers – he attempted to help Mark Caller and his real estate firm secure a zoning change to build a luxury building in Rockaway Park,” Bragg said.
Ulrich, who resigned amid Bragg’s investigation in late 2022, now lives in one of the units in the beachfront building at a steep discount, where Caller allegedly offered him a deal on a partially furnished two-bedroom – paying $2,000 monthly, less than any tenant in the building. Prosecutors allege he had the option to buy the apartment for $55,000 below market price and apply his first year’s rent toward the purchasing price and closing costs, totaling $100,000. His lawyer denied the discount.
In a statement, Caller’s lawyer, Ben Brafman, said Caller “did not commit any crime whatsoever.”
“The indictment alleges Mr. Caller with the bribery of former Buildings Commissioner Eric Ulrich, but it is predicated on a flawed theory, as Mr. Ulrich obtained an apartment in one of Mr. Callers’ buildings at market rate,” Brafman said. “Mr. Caller is not named in any of the four indictments filed today against Mr. Ulrich, nor does the district attorney allege that Mr. Caller even knew any of these men.”
As a City Council member, Ulrich hired Livreri as a part-time aide and ensured Grego got the documents he needed to obtain permits for his clients.
When DOB staff resisted, Ulrich moved to hire and reassign them based on what Grego wanted, the DA said. Ulrich is also accused of trying to smooth the way for one of Grego’s clients obtain a liquor license.
Communications between Ulrich and Grego in June 2022 featured in charging papers include the two men speaking in code about Grego’s end of the deal, and buying off the DOB boss with a painting by Dalí protégé Francisco Poblet. They reference Ulrich’s daughter, but prosecutors said the painting was to be a gift for his girlfriend.
“Is there room on your wall for that, the painting?” Grego is quoted.
“I got it, yeah. My daughter’s gonna love it,” Ulrich said, according to the transcript.
“You saw the back of it, right?”
“Yeah, oh yeah. You know it’s beautiful,” Ulrich said.
Investigators were listening in on Ulrich’s calls for a year starting in November 2021 and said they heard him exploiting his position almost daily.
The News reported earlier this summer that Ulrich told Bragg’s prosecutors that he first learned he might be in trouble in May 2022 from Mayor Adams shortly after his appointment as Buildings Department boss.
Adams allegedly told Ulrich to “watch your back and watch your phones.”
Six months later, he was out of City Hall after DA investigators seized his phone, and the criminal probe hit the headlines. An Adams spokesman told The News in July that the mayor “has never spoken to Mr. Ulrich about this investigation, either before or after the matter became public.”
Bragg did not directly answer whether he had evidence Adams knew Ulrich was being investigated, but cited strong cooperation from the city.
At least one of the indictments makes glancing reference to a top Adams aide, though — not by name, but by title. That reference appears in the indictment accusing Ulrich, Mazzio and the Livreri brothers of conspiracy in the fourth degree. In it, the DA’s office notes that Mazzio and Joseph Livreri met with Adams’ chief adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, in an attempt to secure an authorization for Mazzio’s towing company, Mike’s Heavy Duty Towing, to tow from city highways during a snowstorm and to convince city officials to remove a competitor from a city towing contract.
According to the indictment, Ulrich also put Joseph Livreri on the phone with Lewis-Martin to discuss why Livreri’s pizza parlor, Aldo’s, was shut down.
When asked about the mention of Lewis-Martin in the indictment, Adams’ spokesman Charles Lutvak said Wednesday that “we always expect all our employees to adhere to the strictest ethical guidelines.”
“While we don’t have any details about the indictment other than what has been made public so far, as we have previously stated, we will allow this investigation to run its course and will continue to assist the DA in any way needed,” he said. “To avoid speculation, the mayor has not received any requests from the Manhattan DA surrounding this matter and has never spoken to Mr. Ulrich about this investigation.”
Lutvak said he did not know whether the mayor received a notification from the DA alerting him to whether any of his conversations with Ulrich had been picked up as part of the wiretap.
Bragg did not speak to whether the defendants have mob ties, as has been reported, and he did not comment on Caller’s political fund-raising efforts for the mayor.
Mazzio, Grego, and the Livreris’ lawyers did not immediately provide comment.
