WEST NEW YORK — Victor Coca, 48, of West New York indicted last week on an additional charge of paying thousands of dollars in bribes to a fire official in exchange for the elimination of outstanding fines and penalties on certain buildings that had fire code violations, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
Coca had been arrested May 20, 2014, by special agents of the FBI and charged by complaint with one count of paying bribes to the fire official for the West New York Bureau of Fire Prevention.
Coca was the owner of a general contracting company located in West New York. There were two buildings in West New York with outstanding fines for fire code violations – one building had approximately $14,500 in fines and the other had approximately $8,730,000 in fines and penalties.
Coca allegedly paid the fire official cash bribes to reduce or eliminate the outstanding fines. For the first building, Coca allegedly paid a $2,000 cash bribe to the fire official to eliminate the outstanding $14,500 in fines. For the second building, Coca allegedly paid a $5,000 cash bribe to the fire official, in return for the fire official reducing the $8,730,000 in outstanding penalties, thus making the amount due to the West New York Bureau of Fire Prevention only the initial fine amount of $5,000.
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