A former MTA manager is heading to federal prison for almost four years for admittedly pocketing $152,400 in bribes from contractors on New York City Transit Authority projects.
The 46-month sentence for Talib Lokhandwala, 64, of Fair Lawn, NJ, was part of a pre-arranged plea deal.
Lokhandwala admitted in Brooklyn federal court last fall that he had two contractors write him checks addressed to shell bank accounts he controlled.
Lokhandwala and his wife created a consulting company, Bhavna Associates, in order to accept and disguise the payments.
In return for the bribes, Lokhandwala, a construction project administrator, admittedly steered work the contractors’ way. He also expedited the processing of their work orders and engineers’ drawings.
He also threatened that if they didn’t keep the cash coming, he’d blacklist them from future projects.
The bribes were pocketed between March 2009 and May 2015, the feds said. The contracts were for construction work on city train stations.
In addition to serving his prison sentence, Lokhandwala must pay a $20,000 fine.
“Motivated by greed, Lokhandwala abused his position of trust by soliciting and accepting bribes from contractors performing work on NYCTA projects,” said Brooklyn US Attorney Richard Donoghue.