‘Extremely unfair’: Former FDNY chief accused of corruption once complained that mayor’s office was doing the same thing

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Former FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Brian Cordasco of Huguenot, who was charged with allegedly using a “pay-to-play” bribery scheme to give preferential treatment to some city property owners and developers, once complained in an internal FDNY email about the same type of “cutting the queue” by the mayor’s office.

According to an indictment unsealed Monday morning by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Cordasco complained in an email in 2022 that the mayor’s office’s attempts to fast-track a major downtown development project were “grossly unfair to applicants who have been waiting at least eight weeks for their inspections. Industry opposition will include questions about why some projects are being advanced while others must be canceled and pushed back.”