An offer of free Yankees tickets landed a Bronx man in prison. Celestino Orta was sentenced to three years in prison for attempting to bribe a judge with the offer. The judge, who was hearing a case against him involving building violations, refused and reported him.
Orta was nabbed in a sting operation run by the city Department of Investigation. The investigators posed as corrupt clerks who had heard about Orta’s offer and were interested in getting the tickets themselves. He was more than happy to take them to a Mets-Yankees game, and was busted.
“The defendant struck out when he thought offering free Yankee tickets to a city employee would get him around city rules,” Department of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn said yesterday.
Guess it would have been a lot less costly to have simply cleaned up those violations, wouldn’t it? Orta will have a lot of time to think about that.