A janitorial supply company notorious for its mint-scented garbage bags and cozy ties to Mayor de Blasio appears back in City Hall’s good graces — it just won approval for a $7.6 million contract with NYCHA.
Queens-based JAD Corp. of America, run by Joseph Dussich, received NYCHA’s OK Wednesday at its monthly board meeting across the street from City Hall.
The company attracted the attention of federal and state investigators four years ago for securing a nearly $6 million city Parks Department contract for rat-repellent trash bags after Dussich made a $100,000 donation to de Blasio’s now-defunct Campaign for One New York. Those probes focused broadly on de Blasio’s fundraising operation.
Prior to securing the contract with Parks — and before his generous contribution to CONY — Dussich had lobbied in vain for the agency to use his company’s Mint-X bags.
The current NYCHA contract is for “the purchase and delivery of compactor cartridge bags,” according to the authority’s meeting agenda. It was unclear whether those bags are mint-scented or not.
NYCHA’s board unanimously approved that contract.
Federal and state investigators did not charge de Blasio or JAD, but both the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance admonished de Blasio at the time, with Vance writing that “the transactions appear contrary to the intent and spirit of the laws that impose candidate contribution limits, laws which are meant to prevent ‘corruption and the appearance of corruption.'”
JAD’s attorney Roland Riopelle said the company has a long-standing relationship with NYCHA and that the Parks Department controversy “was put to bed a long time ago.” But a review of the City Comptroller’s contract database did not show any contracts between JAD and NYCHA.
NYCHA spokesman Nekoro Gomes said JAD has been vetted.
“All vendors interested in doing business with NYCHA – including JAD – undergo a stringent vetting process,” he said.
JAD was not the only controversial contractor on the agenda Wednesday.
NYCHA’s board also voted to authorize four funding increases — worth a total of $2.55 million — to Simco Enterprises Corp., a company whose former part-owner Husam Ahmad pleaded guilty to first degree bribery last May in connection with a scheme to illegally direct cash to de Blasio’s 2013 mayoral campaign.
Ahmad was forced out of the company after the scheme came to light. Simco is now under the oversight of a state monitor and is paying off a $1 million fine in connection with that case, according to its attorney John Martin.
“NYCHA has utilized the services of Simco Enterprises since 2015, and today’s board action is a funding increase to an already existing contract,” Gomes said.