Luna Park co-op loses $500K in taxpayer funds amid bribery scandal
A Brooklyn councilmember pulled $500,000 in funding from the Luna Park Housing Corporation days after the women in charge of the Coney Island affordable housing complex were arrested for allegedly accepting bribes to fudge the co-op’s waitlist, the Brooklyn Eagle has learned.
Councilmember Chaim Deutsch provided the half-million dollars to Luna Park in 2018 for security upgrades to doors after someone was raped in the stairwell of one of the buildings in late 2015. He then withdrew the funds after Anna Treybich, the former president of the co-op board, along with former board member Irina Seltser and former office manager Karina Andriyan, was arrested on May 21 for allegedly accepting $874,000 in bribes to help unqualified applicants land apartments at the highly sought-after development.
“Nothing was spent yet. So since the funding will be flagged, I’m pulling it out and reallocating it to other projects,” Deutsch told the Eagle.