NYC NOW - How a NYC Homeless Shelter Provider Got $136M After Embezzlement Charge

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

A Brooklyn nonprofit that runs homeless shelters across the city is facing federal bribery and embezzlement charges against two of its former leaders. New York City has already paid BHRAGS Home Care Corporation roughly $130 million, and the city recently announced it plans to keep doing business with them. WNYC and Gothamist reporter Ryan Kost joins us to walk through how this all happened. Photo: Ryan Kost -Got any questions, comments or story ideas? Send us a message at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre. A Brooklyn nonprofit that runs homeless shelters is set to receive nearly $200 million in new city contracts. But there's a red flag. The new contracts come months after federal prosecutors charged its leaders with bribery and embezzlement. On today's episode, we look into why the city plans

to keep doing business with Bragg's home care. But first, here's your news headlines. The Trump administration is overhauling how it allocates money for the nation's largest homeless assistance program. Officials say they want to move away from long-term housing to focus on short-term housing and treatment. It's part of the government's push to encourage self-sufficiency without public assistance. Rebecca Zangent is with the supportive housing network of New York.

She says that's not realistic. When a full-time minimum wage job cannot afford you a median rent apartment where you live, the expectation that people can live without any government assistance is unreasonable. Most of the New Yorkers at risk were homeless for at least a year and have a mental illness or substance abuse disorder. Primary election day is this Tuesday. And the balance of power, in Washington, D.C. is at stake. In New York City, there's a lot of energy around some really high congressional primaries. And by the way, only registered members of the political party holding the primary are eligible to vote in these elections.

That's WM.YC's senior politics reporter Bridget Bergen. She says this is the election when parties choose their candidates to run in the general election this fall. The vast majority of these races are Democratic primaries. And Bridget says four of them really have her attention. The first is in the seventh congressional district, which includes parts of North Brooklyn and then across the Queen's border into Woodhaven, Ridgewood, Sunnyside, and Long Island City. That was the seat that was previously held by Representative Nydia Velasquez,

really a barrier-breaking representative, the first Puerto Rican woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. she has endorsed Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso as her successor. Bridget says Reynoso also has the support of the Working Families Party. However, Mayor Zoram Mundani has endorsed another candidate, Assembly member Claire Valdez, who is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Bridget says the DSA played a really important role in getting Momdani elected. And what we're really seeing in this race is a contest between Momdani's growing democratic socialist movement versus the more traditional progressive democratic establishment

and also the left-leaning working families party. We should also note that council member Julie One is also on the ballot for this congressional seat. She was elected to the council in 2021 when we had that first ranked choice voting primary. She defeated 14 other candidates. So she certainly knows how to build a coalition. Council member one may know how to build a coalition. But so does Mayor Mumdani. And though his name isn't on the ballot this primary season,

Bridget says his endorsements certainly are. Like New York's 10th congressional district, where Representative Dan Goldman is running for a third term against former New York City controller Brad Lander. But Bridget says Lander has something that Goldman doesn't, the backing of Mayor Mumdani. He came out of the gate with that endorsement. This is a district which includes parts of Lower Manhattan

and Brownstone Brooklyn, has huge voter turnout traditionally, had a huge turnout for Mamdani. So I think people are expecting that his stamp of approval is going to weigh heavily on the minds of voters. Bridget says one issue playing out in this race is the Democratic Party's support of Israel and fury over incumbents like Goldman

in their inability to really do anything in the face of the Trump administration. And so Goldman has tended to be more of a supporter of the traditional democratic positions on Israel. And Lander, while he does not support the boycott divestment sanctions movement, has been openly critical of what has happened in Israel and the U.S. support for military funding in Israel. Another race, Bridget says she's watching,

is happening in a district that represents Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx. She says the race for New York 13 features again this dynamic of Democratic. Socialists versus the progressive establishment. That's where incumbent representative Adriano Espayat is being challenged by an organizer named Daryalisa Avila Chevalier. Mamdani came out and someone unexpectedly endorsed Avila Chevalier for that particular seat. She was recruited by a group called the Justice Democrats. The Justice Democrats is an organization that recruited Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the past.

And Bridget says that's just one. one backing making this an interesting primary moment. And speaking of interesting, there's New York's 12th congressional district. Bridget calls it an incredibly crowded race. But the leading candidates are Assembly members Alex Boris, who represents the East Side, Assembly member Michael Asher, represents the West side. George Conway, an attorney who's argued for the U.S. Supreme Court, former Republican, co-founded the Lincoln Project. He is a single-issue candidate running purely on a pledge. to impeach and remove President Trump. And that's not all.

There's Jack Schlossberg, the only grandson of former President John F. Kennedy. He's the youngest candidate in the race. He's cultivated a really wide audience on different social media platforms. And then there's Nina Schwalby, a scientist who's worked for decades on public health issues. Bridget believes that this race is really going to boil down to a standoff between Boris and Lashir. Polls open at 6 Tuesday morning and close at 9 p.m. The city is set to hand Bragg's home care nearly $200 million in new contracts and convert an emergency shelter to a permanent facility, all while the nonprofit sits at the center of a federal corruption probe. More on that after a quick break.

Welcome back. A Brooklyn nonprofit is at the center of a federal bribery and embezzlement scandal that broke earlier this year. The executive director and a former board chair of Bragg's Home Care Corporation, which runs homeless shelters across the city, have been charged with embezzling more than $1.3 million from the nonprofit. New York City has paid Braggs roughly $130 million through a series of emergency contracts with the Department of Homeless Services since 2022, most of which were set to expire this summer. We now know the city plans to keep doing business with Braggs. WMYC and Gothamist reporter Ryan Kost has been breaking news on this story since April, and though he's been very busy doing so, he's joining us in studio today to walk through it all. Hey, Ryan. Hey, Jene.

So I know there are a lot of names in this story. Can you walk us through what prosecutors are actually alleging here? Yeah. So in March, a federal indictment was unsealed. And it says that these two guys who were at the top of this homeless shelter provided, that they had stolen more than $1.3 million from that shelter provider called Braggs. Roberto Samaddy was the executive director, although the organization says he's now on leave. Okay.

And there's Jean Ronald Tirillis, and he's Bragg's former board chair. They say that not only did they steal that money, though, that they were also directing some of the organization's money to these other contractors in exchange for bribes and kickbacks. Wow. And again, all of this is like alleged. This is what's in the indictments. You know, this is all still working its way through the court. Yeah. And as I mentioned at the top, Brax has been getting emergency contracts from the Department of Homeless Services since 2022.

And according to your reporting, those contracts equal at least $130 million. Then there's this new contract worth $136 million. And that's set to start next month. When did you first learn that that contract existed? I wasn't exactly like expecting to get into federal corruption probes that day. And then I get called into a meeting with a bunch of editors and reporters. And we're sort of putting our heads together trying to figure out, well, what happens next with this story? There's this indictment.

It's alleging a bunch of different things. Where do we start pulling the thread? So I just went back to my desk and I went to the city's website and I basically made myself a spreadsheet of every single single. contract that I could find that had been given to Braggs. Okay. And again, so this is, again, like I said, early March, I'm looking at sort of the expiration dates on a lot of these contracts, and they're all set to expire this summer. But then I noticed another one, and that one at the time was worth $94 million, and it

actually wasn't even set to begin until July. And I thought, you know, this is crazy. It's the largest contract on here. Is it possible, you know, this large, the largest contract on here is going to go into effect in July? Or does this probe, this indictment, mean that the city is going to have to figure out something else? Right. You know, so then I start making calls to the various agencies like the Department of Social Services, the Department of Investigation, and then I also start talking to people like John Caney with Reinvent Albany. I would be very surprised if this contract actually is implemented in July.

At this point, they're thinking there's probably no way that this contract actually goes forward. Right. Right. But we know it did, right? Yeah, I mean, not only does the $94 million go through, but it gets bigger. Biggest yet. And they added it to the second one. So city contracting records show that Braggs is set to receive at least two new contracts starting July 1st. The first one is for shelter facilities for homeless adults.

That's worth $136 million. So that used to be $94. Now it's $136. It's just grown in scope. Almost double. Yeah. And then there's a separate $50 million contract for social services and commercial hotels that was recently listed on the public database as well. And now we're talking nearly $200 million in new contracts.

The city says that in order to make sure that all this goes well, they're going to place brags under the watch of what they're calling it independent monitor. This person will have deep experience managing nonprofits. And then they'll have sort of extraordinary powers over this, not. nonprofit, including the ability to hire and fire board members and employees. And like I mentioned earlier, they'll report directly to the Department of Investigation, not to the organization itself. I guess I'm just confused. Like, why not just break ties? You know, I think the biggest reason is likely that it's just really difficult to find providers who can operate shelters at the scale that Braggs is operating these shelters now.

It's not like you can just go out and find another person to. step in seamlessly and take over all the operations that they have been coordinating for the past, you know, three, four years. That would be a big lift. And so it's a lot less friction to just try and sort of get the ship going in the right direction. Also, you know, considering how overburdened homeless shelters are in the city. Right. Yeah. I mean, we write about it all the time. There are always issues stemming from homeless shelters for, you know, any variety of reasons. Now, just because that might be sort of like the easier path doesn't necessarily mean that it's the one that everybody thinks they should have taken. That said, when I talked to the city, they said, you know, that there are, quote, incredible frontline workers working for the organization and they just felt like it could be rehabilitated.

You know, that there was promise here that what a couple people did should not reflect on everybody who works there who might have really great intentions, who might, you know, be doing their best. Basically, everyone in the organization isn't corrupt. Right, exactly. Yeah, you know, two apples don't spoil the barrel or whatever the expression is. I have, for the record, tried to talk to Braggs about this, and they will not return my calls or get me on the phone with anybody there. It's still baffling to me, though, and I have to ask, like, how does a nonprofit that was apparently under federal scrutiny keep winning city business? Yeah, I mean, it's important to understand that this was coming through a variety of, like, change. So the most recent contracts we're talking about were all regular bid process. But up until that one, this was all happening through emergency contracting. So sometimes the federal government, sometimes the state government, sometimes the city government just needs to move really fast to address an issue. And I think people remember the payment prevention program, PPP during COVID when the federal government was handing a bunch of money to businesses to make sure that they could keep paying their employees.

and, you know, that we weren't going to have this massive unemployment breakdown of social fabric, everything like that. Yeah. So, like, the same thing sort of happened in New York during the migrant crisis, which I'm sure listeners will remember. We had all of these people moving into the city, and the city government was scrambling to figure out, what do we do? Like, we don't have the beds for these folks in all of our shelters. We need to, like, spin up some more really quickly. So as a result, like, they were handing out emergency contracts to various shelter providers. And that's sort of how Braggs grew from having, you know, no shelter contracts before 2022 to having hundreds of millions of dollars worth of them, you know, in a couple years later.

Yeah, that's a huge glow-up. Yeah. Okay. So what are you watching for next? Yeah. Well, we're still looking into various aspects of this story. We're not going to, like, just drop it. So we've requested contracts from the comptroller's office for all of the contracts that Bragg's had with the city.

I'll be looking through those. And then, of course, this is still playing out in court. So we'll keep our eyes on what happens there. Okay. That's WNYC's Ryan Kost. Thanks so much for stopping in and breaking this all down for us. No, thanks so much for having me. And thank you for listening to NYC now.

I'm Jenae Pierre. See you next time.