Two former NYCHA superintendents are headed to prison on federal bribery charges for awarding no-bid contracts in exchange for thousands of dollars in bribes, prosecutors announced Thursday.

In federal court in Manhattan Thursday, Leroy Gibbs, 58, of Bay Shore on Long Island, was sentenced to 33 months in prison, and Leroy Figueroa, a 45-year-old Bronx man, was sentenced to 15 months in prison. 

“Leroy Gibbs and Julio Figueroa betrayed the trust of NYCHA and harmed the residents of Douglass Houses and Ft. Independence Houses, taxpayers, and the contractors who were forced to pay them bribes in order to receive work — all so that they could line their pockets,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a statement. “By accepting bribes, they put greed above their duty to the public.”

According to court documents filed by prosecutors, Gibbs wrote text messages to contractors detailing kickback schemes as he handed out NYCHA jobs to them. At one point in 2019, the more than 35-year veteran NYCHA employee texted a federal informant, “for every $5,000 job you give me $1,000,” according to the documents. The informant later submitted two bids just under $5,000 each, prosecutors said in court documents.

“Several days later, the first proposal was approved and Gibbs texted the CI: ‘You got one today. Hopefully another one tomorrow,’” the court documents read. “The following day, Gibbs texted the CI, ‘1k for each.’” 

Gibbs was accused of accepting $2,000 in bribes from the federal informant, but prosecutors documented years of text messages with contractors and informants, and noted he deposited $598,000 in cash into bank accounts between January 2015 and February 2022.

Prosecutors also allege that Gibbs wrote that he “put hands on” a contractor who threatened to report him.

According to court documents filed by his defense team, in a letter to the federal judge overseeing his case on Oct. 15, 2022, Gibbs pleaded with the judge for a lenient sentence while outlining a life story filled with challenges and community service, including fostering around two dozen children.

“I spent my entire life building a solid reputation of honesty, hard work, and a strong work ethic but succumbed to greed, unraveling a lifetime of effort,” Gibbs wrote. “It pains me greatly to know that this awful act of self-sabotage is how people will remember me.”

“There are no excuses, your Honor, just pure regret for my abysmal decision, misdeed, and actions,” Gibbs added. 

Gibbs, who worked as a resident building superintendent at the Frederick Douglass Houses on the Upper West Side, is also accused of obstructing justice in recent weeks.

In a release, federal prosecutors wrote Gibbs “took several steps to obstruct justice, including by deleting text messages and obtaining a new phone number to communicate with a co-conspirator.”

“Mr. Gibbs acknowledges his deceit. His foolish efforts to obstruct this prosecution, just days before his sentencing, while simultaneously expressing remorse, have been laid bare,” Michael Martin, one of Gibbs’ attorneys, wrote in a letter submitted to the court that was included in court documents filed by prosecutors. “Beyond the obstructive conduct, his texts are replete with expressions of greed, selfishness and braggadocio.”

“Mr. Gibbs deserves punishment, and we urge that he also merits an opportunity to rebuild his life and make amends as he can in his later years,” Martin added.

Court documents show that in a Jan. 19 letter to the court, NYCHA’s interim general counsel David Rohde wrote Gibbs’ “criminal betrayal of NYCHA merits the maximum penalty permitted by law.”

According to court documents, Gibbs’ attorneys said his pension will be docked $30,000 a year as the result of his “premature termination” from NYCHA.

Figueroa, an assistant resident buildings superintendent at the Fort Independence Houses in the Bronx, accepted $6,000 in bribes over the last two years, according to prosecutors.

According to court documents filed by prosecutors, after nine contractors in Brooklyn were arrested in September 2021 for bribing NYCHA superintendents, Figueroa told a federal informant “that he hoped he would not be the subject of an undercover investigation, and whispered that he would probably only deal with the CI from then on because the news story scared him, and he did not want to deal with too many people.”

Figueroa kept accepting bribes for nearly a year after that, prosecutors said in court documents. He was employed by NYCHA for 23 years, according to Rohde, the housing authority’s general counsel.

“What I did was never with greed or malicious intent,” Figueroa wrote to the judge presiding over his case on Jan. 24, according to court documents. “It was more out of desperation, I had increasing financial debt. I will never allow this situation or any other situation to get me to make a decision like that again.”

Figueroa added his mother is sick, and she “needs my physical presence for help,” he wrote, detailing an incident earlier in January where she hit her head and he rushed her to the hospital.

"NYCHA has zero tolerance for illegal acts committed by staff, and worked in partnership with DOI on this investigation," a spokesperson for NYCHA said in a statement. "The Authority has implemented significant changes to prevent this type of malfeasance, including updates and modifications to purchasing oversight, how contracts are awarded and tracked, and post-award contract management."