On the heels of a guilty plea by his co-defendant on Wednesday, a former East Hampton Town Building Department employee accepted a plea deal Thursday in Suffolk County Supreme Court after admitting to accepting bribes in exchange for expediting building permits and certificates of occupancy.
Ryan Benitez, 38, who had been a building inspector, received the same plea deal before Justice Timothy P. Mazzei that Evelyn Calderon, 47, had accepted the day before.
He agreed to a deal with Justice Mazzei that would see him serving 840 hours of community service, five years of probation, and a fine of $15,100. Mr. Benitez, who lives in East Hampton, pleaded guilty to five counts of third-degree bribe acceptance, a felony, and five counts of official misconduct, a misdemeanor.
As Justice Mazzei read of each of the 10 counts, a meek Mr. Benitez answered "guilty" to them all.
The two were charged in connection with a scheme in which they were said to have taken Zelle payments from contractors in exchange for fast-tracking certificates of occupancy and building permits in 2024. "Calderon would allegedly prioritize a bribe-paying contractor's application even though she was supposed to process applications in chronological order," reducing the wait time to only a few days when some people were waiting weeks or even months, the Suffolk County district attorney's office said in April.
According to Patrick Rooney, the assistant district attorney on the case Thursday, Ms. Calderon solicited the bribes from contractors and would split the money with Mr. Benitez, who would then schedule an inspection of the property. Ms. Calderon used an online money transfer application like Zelle to send the funds to Mr. Benitez.
The case file obtained by The Star Thursday indicates that the case surrounding Ms. Calderon and Mr. Benitez undertaken by the D.A.'s office apparently probed a sizable number of contractors in connection with specifically named properties.
Justin Winter, a former building inspector who resigned in July, and Brandon Gabbard, a building inspector who was suspended in January weeks after Mr. Benitez resigned, both appear in those filings. Neither have faced any charges of wrongdoing.
Ms. Calderon was placed on paid suspension the previous spring.
Dawn Green, a senior building inspector, was the only employee left standing in the department following their exits, and she, along with Joe Palermo, the former chief building inspector, were named as potential witnesses in discovery.
Mr. Palermo, who said he brought his concerns about wrongdoing in the department to the attention of officials in 2024, left the town and is now working as the chief building inspector for East Hampton Village.
Mr. Rooney said Thursday that the contractors wrapped up in the scheme would not be named by his office, which views them as witnesses. Matthew Tuohy, Mr. Benitez's lawyer, said later Thursday that the names, while provided to him in the discovery phase of the case, were under a protective order from the court, which was obtained by The Star.
Audio recordings between Ms. Calderon and some of those protected contractors through the WhatsApp phone application were submitted as evidence by county investigators.
The contractors are said to have provided grand jury testimony that led to the charges leveled against Mr. Benitez and Ms. Calderon.
Both Mr. Benitez and Ms. Calderon are due back in court on Dec. 2 for sentencing.