NYC Public Servants Stole $1.2M In COVID Funds, DA Says

NEW YORK CITY — A probe into ghost guns uncovered a conspiracy to submit fraudulent applications in the names of unsuspecting homeless New Yorkers that reaped $1.2 million in COVID relief funds, said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Eighteen people — including workers in the Department of Homeless Services, NYCHA, the NYPD, MTA and the United States Postal Service — face a slew of charges from four indictments unveiled Thursday by Bragg.

"This type of conduct by our public servants is unacceptable and, as we allege, criminal," he said.

The sprawling indictments stemmed from what Bragg called a "street crime" investigation into 3-D printed ghost guns.

A Department of Homeless Services worker, Criag Freeman, 56, Adrienne Manigault, 25, and an unnamed co-conspirator are charged in two ghost gun conspiracies in which they bought hundreds of dollars worth of 3-D printers and swapped information on how to create homemade weapons, prosecutors said.

Investigators not only found evidence of a scheme to create illegal ghost guns, but also evidence that the pair were part of another, separate white collar conspiracy with 15 other people to submit 170 fraudulent applications for pandemic relief funds, Bragg said.

"That street crime investigation grew into and developed into a very, very important financial fraud investigation,” he said.

Five of those 15 were Department of Homeless Services employees who abused their access to personal information of unhoused New Yorkers to submit the phony applications, Bragg said.

"Many of the fraudulent applications that are charged within this indictment were applied for, and on behalf of, unsuspecting unhoused individuals," he said.

Bragg said the fraudsters had checks sent to addresses on the route of a postal worker with whom they were in cahoots.

"The worker would then intercept that mail and provide them to the defendants," he said.

A fourth indictment is leveled against a now-former NYPD officer, Charde Baker, 35, who enlisted her boyfriend and a friend, who were involved in the scheme, to burglarize the home of another conspirator she believed had taken more than their share, Bragg said.

The defendants were arraigned Thursday on a slew of charges, ranging from fraud to burglary, he said.