The city is withholding $35,000 in taxpayer funding from the group Borough Park Shomrim patrol following the arrest of one of its leaders in a nearly $1 million bribery scheme involving NYPD pistol permits.
Two grants were earmarked for the civilian anti-crime patrol last year by Brooklyn Councilmen David Greenfield and Chaim Deutsch, but the money was frozen after federal charges were unsealed Monday against Alex “Shaya” Lichtenstein.
A spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday the cash wouldn’t be handed over until City Hall was confident that Shomrim was “a responsible vendor.”
The group has raked in $425,708 in pork-barrel funding from City Council members since fiscal 2010, according to officials in the mayor’s office. An additional $30,000 in contracts were funded earlier — including two grants totaling $20,000 from de Blasio when he was a councilman from Brooklyn.
The nine contracts included nearly $200,000 to purchase vehicles.
Meanwhile, sources told The Post that NYPD Deputy Inspector James Grant was the unidentified “commanding officer” who the feds say introduced Lichtenstein to a sergeant in the License Division, which handles pistol permit applications.
Lichtenstein was caught on a hidden camera trying to bribe a cop as a replacement for division “connections” who previously helped him score 150 gun permits, according to court papers.
He also offered a whistleblowing cop $6,000 a pop to continue the scheme, using a calculator to show that another 150 permits would be worth $900,000 in payoffs, the papers say.
Grant was ousted as commander of the Upper East Side’s 19th Precinct on April 7. Eight other cops have also been demoted as part of a widening corruption scandal first reported by The Post.
Sources said Grant was also on a plane where NYPD officials allegedly had sex with a prostitute dressed as a flight attendant.