Ulrich pushed for Brooklyn bakery inspection, former Buildings chief testifies

Recordings of phone calls former Queens City Councilmember Eric Ulrich made to get a Brooklyn bakery reopened allegedly in exchange for bribes were played in court on Friday. AP file photo by Mary Altaffer

By Noah Powelson

The former head of the city’s Department of Buildings said in court last week that Eric Ulrich asked her to help reopen a Brooklyn bakery connected to two men who have since admitted to bribing Ulrich in exchange for favors.

The second week of Ulrich’s trial concluded on Friday with the testimony of Melanie La Rocca, who served as the city’s commissioner of the Department of Buildings before Ulrich took over the agency in 2022.

The crux of her testimony on Friday focused on wiretapped phone calls between her and Ulrich on March 10, 2022, when Ulrich, a former city councilmember from Queens, asked for her help reopening the Fortunato Brothers Bakery in Brooklyn after a fire had forced it to close.

Ulrich’s involvement in the bakery’s rapid reopening is central to the district attorney’s case; it’s one of the alleged instances in which brothers Joseph and Anthony Livreri said they bribed the former city councilmember in exchange for his help.

In September, the Livreri brothers admitted in court that they had made regular payments to Ulrich for years in exchange for favors related to their business interests. One of those payments was $4,000 to lift a vacate order placed on Fortunato Brothers Bakery after a fire broke out in a residential unit within the building.

In a recording played in New York County Criminal Court on Friday, Ulrich told La Rocca in an early morning phone call on March 10, 2022, that he needed her help with a “time sensitive” issue. Recordings and emails shown in court on Friday were made when La Rocca was still DOB commissioner and Ulrich had been serving as special adviser to Mayor Eric Adams.

In the recording, Ulrich told La Rocca that the bakery was due for an inspection that day and the owners wanted to get their full vacate order reduced to a partial one so it could reopen. Ulrich also told La Rocca he wanted to make sure the “right inspector” from the DOB was sent, and to notify Kazimir Vilenchik, then Brooklyn borough commissioner, about the situation.

“I want to make sure that [Vilenchik] or whoever sends the right inspector, because they want to just clean out the bakery and be able to file to permanently reopen,” Ulrich said in a recorded phone call.

Ulrich also said that he got word of the building’s inspection from “Biagio and the owner and his friend.” Biagio Fortunato is one of the owners of the bakery.

Following the call, La Rocca notified DOB staff members to look at the bakery’s inspection. As a result, the inspection was carried out and the order to vacate was lifted that same day.

Under normal procedures, La Rocca said, inspections are usually only ordered after an individual requests one from the city. In the case of the bakery, the owners should have made a request through Brooklyn construction enforcement.

But La Rocca said the standard procedure was not followed, and she only got involved because Ulrich directly contacted her as a member of the mayor’s office.

“Eric called and I reached out to staff,” La Rocca said from the stand. “The individual did not in fact contact Brooklyn construction enforcement.”

She also said she had never met the Livreri brothers or any of the men currently accused of bribing Ulrich.

Phone calls played in court also showed that multiple members of the Adams administration took an active interest in the bakery reopening.

In one call, Ulrich said that Ingrid Lewis-Martin had also been asking about the bakery. Lewis-Martin was a longtime ally and adviser to Adams. She was also indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office for allegedly taking more than $100,000 in bribes while she worked in city government.

La Rocca said she found it “puzzling” that Martin was interested in the bakery.

Melanie La Rocca, the city’s former Department of Buildings commissioner, testified in Eric Ulrich’s trial on Friday. Photo via Department of Buildings

“Seems like a rather mundane thing for a member such as Ingrid to be inquiring about,” La Rocca said.

Ulrich’s attorney, David Cohen, attempted to cast a different light on La Rocca’s intervention in the bakery’s inspection. In a lengthy cross-examination, Cohen pointed out that La Rocca was acquainted with Frank Quatela, the architect of Fortunato’s Bakery, and that he had previously done work on La Rocca’s home.

In a phone call recording, La Rocca was also heard saying that she had been a regular customer of the bakery since she was a little girl. La Rocca confirmed that was true while on the stand, but affirmed that she had never met the bakery’s owners.

Cohen attempted to argue that La Rocca expedited the inspection out of her general responsibilities as DOB commissioner and her personal interest in a business she knew well, rather than because of Ulrich.

La Rocca denied that either her interest in the bakery or her relationship with its architect had any impact on her trying to get the bakery quickly reopened.

“If a problem is presented and the matter is brought to my attention, I see to it the agency is responsive,” La Rocca said.

La Rocca, who is from Queens, was appointed by former Mayor Bill de Blasio to lead the city’s Department of Buildings in 2019, and continued to serve in the role for the initial few months of the Adams administration. She eventually stepped down from the role to become the city’s first Chief Efficiency Officer in 2022.

Ulrich was appointed as the DOB’s newest commissioner in May 2022. He was appointed the same time Vilenchik was named first deputy commissioner of the DOB.

Ulrich’s trial is expected to continue through the week.