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Amid Eavesdropping Accusations, New York City Fires Jails Official

The New York City Correction Department’s top internal affairs official, who was demoted last week amid accusations that he eavesdropped on telephone conversations between city investigators and their jailhouse informers on Rikers Island, was quietly fired this week.

The New York City Correction Department’s top internal affairs official, who was demoted last week amid accusations that he eavesdropped on telephone conversations between city investigators and their jailhouse informers on Rikers Island, was quietly fired this week.

 

The official, Gregory Kuczinski, who was the Correction Department’s deputy commissioner of investigations, was initially stripped of his duties on May 8. The jails agency took that action soon after the Investigation Department made the accusations in a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio.

 

The accusations of spying on city investigators as they were conducting undercover anticorruption operations, along with a city report about the misuse of agency vehicles by the correction commissioner, Joseph Ponte, Mr. Kuczinski and other top staff members — as well as the disclosure that the commissioner had been out of state for 90 days last year — prompted Mr. Ponte to announce Friday that he would resign this summer.

 

The troubled jails agency was under intense scrutiny well before the Investigation Department’s allegations surfaced, and they prompted further questions about the management of the agency from the City Council and city and state oversight boards.

Caroline Cournoyer is GOVERNING's senior web editor.