NYCHA Chair Gave False Testimony To Council Under Oath: Report

NEW YORK, NY — The New York City Housing Authority's chairwoman gave false testimony under oath to a City Council committee last month, the New York Daily News reported Tuesday.

Shola Olatoye did not tell the truth when she said 4,200 NYCHA apartments where inspected for lead by federally certified workers, according to a letter from city Department of Investigation that the Daily News obtained.

NYCHA has said it checked those apartments presumed to have lead paint where kids younger than 6 live in 2016, after Olatoye learned of a yearslong lapse in legally required inspections.

During a Dec. 5 hearing before the Council's Commitee on Public Housing, Councilman Ritchie Torres asked Olatoye whether the workers who inspected them had proper training from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Olatoye said they did. "The HUD certification training. Yes. That is correct," she said, according to the Daily News.

But the Department of Investigation found that none of NYCHA's workers who performed the inspections had received the HUD training, the Daily News reported. Only 15 NYCHA staffers have the training; of a sample of the 86 workers who did the inspections, 85 percent said they never received any HUD training, the story says.

Torres, who chaired the public housing committee at the time of the hearing, told the Daily News that Olatoye never corrected the record with the Council.

"There are only two explanations: Either she lied to the City Council or she left uncorrected a false statement to the City Council made under oath," Torres, who now chairs the new Committee on Oversight and Investigations, told the Daily News. "In either case, there should be consequences."

NYCHA failed to inspect apartments for lead paint as required by city and federal law for four years, then falsely told HUD the inspections were done, a DoI report revealed in November.

Olatoye has said she knew nothing about the lapse and ordered inspections for the 4,200 apartments as soon as she found out in April 2016. But news reports have revealed many of the workers who inspected or repainted apartments lacked the proper certification.

Jasmine Blake, NYCHA's press secretary, said Olatoye did not intentionally mislead the Council. But she didn't answer a question about why the chairwoman did not correct her false testimony.

"The Chair was truthful and relied on the facts provided to her," Blake said in a statement. "She was told staff had been trained. We will evaluate DOI’s claims to understand their assertions here."

Lying to public officials is illegal, but prosecutors would have to prove Olatoye intended to deceive the committee to convict her, according to the Daily News.

NYCHA has faced criticism for its failure to communicate the lead-testing lapse and the fact that improperly certified workers performed them. Two top housing authority officials resigned and a third was demoted after the DoI's findings. NYCHA's general manager, Michael Kelly, plans to step down next month, though officials deny that has anything to do with the scandal.

Public Advocate Letitia James — a vocal critic of NYCHA who's called for Olatoye's resignation — said the chairwoman's testimony is further evidence of the need for change at the housing authority.

"Lying under oath is a serious offense that should not be taken lightly," James said in a statement. "NYCHA has continued to fail to protect residents and abused public trust, for which corrections must be made."

Read the full Daily News story here.

(Lead image: NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye speaks at an awards ceremony in September 2016. Photo by NYCHA via Flickr)