A leader of the Boro Park Shomrim private safety patrol was busted by the feds in a gun-permit scam tied to the widening NYPD corruption scandal.
Shaya Lichtenstein, a Shomrim coordinator, was charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery and was awaiting a Monday afternoon appearance in Manhattan federal court, law-enforcement sources said.
Lichtenstein’s arrest capped an investigation into allegations that he used payoffs to help members of the Orthodox Jewish community obtain expedited pistol permits from the NYPD.
Lichtenstein, from Borough Park, would charge members of the Orthodox community between $5,000 and $25,000 to expedite their gun permit requests, according to sources.
Lichtenstein told the NYPD that the permit seekers needed the guns because they worked in security or in the diamond district.
Meanwhile, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton announced that three cops had been transfered out of department’s License Division, which handles permit applications.
Deputy Inspector Michael Endall “is being re-assigned to an administrative position pending further review,” while Sgt. David Villanueva and Officer Richard Ochetal were stripped of their badges and guns and also re-assigned.
Lichtenstein’s defense lawyer, Richard Finkel, said he had been nabbed in a “probable cause arrest” but not yet been indicted by a grand jury.
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