Mob Allegations Tail Tow Truckers in City Hall Bribery Scandal
The prosecutions of former Adams aide Eric Ulrich and associates spotlight corruption in an industry DAs say is infiltrated by the Mafia — and where the NYPD calls the shots.
BY GREG B. SMITH GSMITH@THECITY.NYC OCT 10, 2023, 5:05AM EDT
Tow trucks sat behind a tall metal fence at Mike’s Heavy Duty Towing in East New York.Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
A Brooklyn tow company owner who raised big bucks for Mayor Eric Adams and faces bribery charges tied to his interactions with a former top mayoral aide has been enmeshed in scandals dating back 25 years — including one in which prosecutors alleged his company was controlled by the Genovese crime family.
Last month Michael Mazzio, 54, was indicted on charges of bribing Eric Ulrich, while Ulrich was a top aide to Adams. In exchange for cash and Mets tickets, prosecutors allege that Ulrich got Mazzio access to Adams’ chief advisor, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, and snagged him a sit-down dinner with the mayor himself.
Before that, Mazzio and his company, Mike’s Heavy Duty Towing, had turned up in the middle of two scandals that highlight a longstanding effort by the towing industry to corrupt the system New York City uses to regulate who gets to tow disabled vehicles.
Mike’s Heavy Duty first emerged in a 1998 lawsuit alleging the city’s system for regulating which companies are permitted to tow vehicles off of city highways was corrupt. And Mazzio and his company were indicted in a 2018 case that included allegations of Mafia control of New York’s towing industry.
That case was still pending in August 2021 when Mazzio co-hosted the fundraiser at Russo’s on the Bay that raised $140,490 for Adams’ mayoral campaign, and on Dec. 27, 2021, when Mazzio had a private dinner with Adams a week before he took office.
It also remained unresolved throughout 2021, when prosecutors say Mazzio was bribing Ulrich and communicating with Adams’ chief advisor, Lewis-Martin, about reinstating his license, getting work towing vehicles stuck on highways during snow storms, and revoking the highway permit of a rival firm, Runway Towing.
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Months after that meeting, Runway’s permit was terminated, despite a judge’s finding that that punishment was too severe and disproportionate to the alleged overcharging infractions leveled against the firm.
Asked whether the mayor was aware of the allegations regarding organized crime involvement in Mazzio’s company, Charles Lutvak, a spokesperson for Adams, said “Mayor Adams meets with New Yorkers every day and had no knowledge of Mike’s Heavy Duty Towing’s ownership structure or this one individual’s alleged relationships until The City reached out.”
Mazzio had long depended on the good graces of city government, granting him the permits that have allowed him to thrive as a major towing industry player for decades.
Behind the scenes, this sometimes pugilistic industry has been plagued by mob infiltration. As the then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. put it in a 2018 case filed against Mazzio and 10 other tow companies and their affiliated auto body shops, “The New York City towing industry is influenced by organized crime.”
Brooklyn tow truck company owner Michael Mazzio was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on bribery charges connected to indicted former Department of Buildings commissioner Eric Ulrich.Alex Krales/THE CITY
The city’s system for regulating the towing of vehicles within its borders has been tainted again and again with allegations of bribery, bid-rigging and general day-to-day corruption.
This is particularly true regarding the system managed by the NYPD to regulate which companies are granted permits to haul vehicles off highways, parkways, expressways, bridges and tunnels.
Under what’s known as the Arterial Highway Towing Program, the NYPD awards select companies licensed by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCPW) the exclusive right to tow vehicles in assigned segments of highways. Tow fees for disabled vehicles are capped at $125 for the first 10 miles, although fees for heavy duty towing of 18-wheelers and other large vehicles are much higher. All fee restrictions are supposed to be followed assiduously.
The system for designating who gets these permits, however, is unusual. There’s none of the traditional competitive bidding. Instead applicants seek a permit from a small committee appointed by the NYPD that reviews applications and assigns segments to companies based on a point system. The committee relies on interviews but does not always interview every applicant.
In 2017, the NYPD began suggesting that, in addition to the base fee they’re required to pay, applicants should also pay the department an unspecified “vendor proposed percentage” of the fees they collect for highway towing. One vendor who declined to make such a payment was rejected and alleged that the NYPD only awarded permits to tow companies that kicked in this extra lucre.
For the last two weeks the NYPD has refused to provide THE CITY with a list of the companies currently holding highway towing permits or to reveal how much they’ve collected in fees and “vendor proposed percentage” over the last two years. The city comptroller, who reviews and registers all contracts with city agencies, has no information about who is doing this work and how much the companies are paying the NYPD for these permits.
Weiner Party
This system is extremely lucrative for the companies, but it also puts vehicle owners in a vulnerable spot: they have no choice about who’s going to tow their vehicle and, more often than not, the vehicles wind up in storage lots or auto body shops controlled by the towing companies.
That often results in consumers getting hit with hundreds to thousands of dollars in illegal fees without explanation, along with storage fees that grow when the companies delay giving owners access to their vehicles. The DCWP has hit tow companies with hundreds of violations for overcharging in the last decade.
Questions about the integrity of this system date back to 1996, when Mazzio incorporated Mike’s Heavy Duty Towing, just as the NYPD reopened the application process for highway segments. NYPD had been brought in to co-manage the program with the city Department of Transportation after allegations of corruption had surfaced with DOT.
But the move to the NYPD was no cure-all. In the first round of permits, four tow companies that had been assigned nearly all the highway segments for decades were rejected and replaced by nine companies that had little experience doing that work. One of those firms was the newly incorporated Mike’s Heavy Duty Towing.
In 1998 one of the rejected firms, Midtown Enterprises, filed a lawsuit charging that the NYPD’s system for picking companies was “fraught with irregularities and illegal, criminal corruption.” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman ordered the NYPD to pause awarding any more highway tow assignments until the litigation could be resolved.
The suit noted that Mike’s Heavy Duty Towing got the section of the Brooklyn/Queens Expressway (Segment 7) that Midtown had patrolled for years, and alleged that all the winning applicants were connected to Norman Teitler, a disbarred attorney convicted of insurance fraud who’d formed something called the Metropolitan New York Towing and Auto Body Association.
At the time, Teitler and his association were pressuring tow truck company owners to make campaign donations to then-City Councilmember Anthony Weiner, who was preparing his first run for Congress. In an October 16, 1997, letter, Teitler implored the owners to attend an Oct. 22 fundraiser at a Sheepshead Bay beach club, making clear their donation was meant to gain political support for their financial interests.
“If the fundraiser is not a success, and without everyone contributing and making the effort to attend, there will be no rate increase,” he wrote, referencing the rate the city allowed companies to charge per tow.
Federal election records show Friends of Anthony Weiner received 10 donations totaling $5,150 between the date of the letter and the fundraiser, including $250 from Teitler. None of the donors except Teitler listed their employer or occupation.
The owners of two other tow companies said Teitler approached them during the application process and said if they paid him $10,000 in cash, Teitler would “guarantee” they’d get “several” arterial highway permits from the NYPD, Midtown’s suit alleged. One owner said Teitler made clear that if he didn’t make such a payment, he would not get a permit, the suit also alleged.
The suit also highlighted Carl Fava, a man the NYPD and FBI have identified as a soldier in the Genovese crime family. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has alleged that for years, Fava and a second reputed Genovese soldier, George Coppolino, illegally brokered agreements and mediated disputes within the New York City towing industry.
Prosecutors alleged that Fava had a financial interest in several tow firms — including Mike’s Heavy Duty Towing. (Lutvak said the mayor “is not familiar with Carl Fava.”)
Allegations of the Genovese crime family’s involvement in the towing industry have surfaced in other cases as well.
In a December 2001 case, an acting Genovese capo, Pasquale Parrello, and two of his associates allegedly took control of a Bronx towing company, an indictment by the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney alleged.
In a March 2001 case, an FBI informant described a physical altercation involving two tow truck companies controlled by two different Mafia families: one headed by alleged Genovese capo Salvatore “Sammy Meatballs” Aparo, the other by Joe Saunders Cammarano, a reputed gangster with the Bonanno family. A fight ensued, cars were damaged and one of the participants was almost killed, the informant said.
An accusation about Fava’s comfort with employing violence emerged in the Midtown lawsuit. The co-owner of another towing company that Fava “controlled” feared he wouldn’t be approved for a highway permit and wanted to withdraw the application. In response, Fava stated if he did, he would “break your face. You’ll get the highway.”
At one point as the NYPD was considering applications for highway permits in 1997, Fava discussed the permit selection with an NYPD chief who has “input into the selection process” for permits during dinner at the Marco Polo Restaurant in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, according to Midtown’s lawsuit.
Marco Polo Ristorante in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Fava picked up the tab at Marco Polo in cash, the suit alleged. At the time, Marco Polo was owned by Joseph Chirico, an alleged Gambino family soldier.
Guilty Plea
In 2018 Fava, Teitler and Mazzio all came together publicly in an indictment brought by Manhattan DA Vance that alleged pervasive corruption throughout the city’s towing industry. The indictments described a wide variety of criminal activity, including drivers beating up rivals and damaging their trucks. In Mazzio’s case, the charges focused exclusively on his longtime participation — stemming back to the allegations that emerged in the 1998 lawsuit — in the NYPD’s arterial highway towing program.
Under the NYPD’s highway towing program, tow companies assigned to segments of highway are not allowed to subcontract the work to other companies. The DA charged that reputed mob soldier Fava brokered a deal in which another tow truck company owner, Daniel Steininger, paid Mazzio $20,000 by quarter plus a percent of the insurance claims they collected to haul away vehicles on highway sections where Mazzio had NYPD-awarded permits.
Mazzio was charged with false filing and a conspiracy to monopolize the towing industry and had his tow truck company license revoked (a revocation he’s still fighting in court). Teitler was charged with coordinating with Fava to determine which companies would get which specific highway segments.
In 2021 Teitler pleaded guilty to filing a false instrument first degree. Fava did the same the next year, and both were sentenced to three years of conditional discharge during which time they could not do business with the city. Teitler’s attorney, Todd Greenberg, declined comment. Fava’s lawyer, Andrew Leider, did not respond to a request for comment.
Tow trucks on the lot at Mike’s Duty Towing in East New York, Brooklyn. Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Last week Mazzio entered his own guilty plea in the 2018 case, admitting to one count of attempted agreement in restraint of trade, a class A misdemeanor. He was sentenced to conditional discharge. He was fined $1,000 and his tow truck company, Mike’s Heavy Duty, agreed to pay a $5,000 fine. Mazzio’s lawyer, James Froccaro, declined comment.
Midtown’s lawsuit went to trial but in 1999 Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Paula J. Omansky, dismissed the case after a week of testimony.
“I’ve been practicing law for 40 years,” said Brian Sokoloff of the law firm Sokoloff Stern LLP, the lawyer who represented Midtown Enterprises. “It remains the most surprising defeat of my career. The evidence we put before the court was overwhelming. It was shocking.”
After the bribery case against Mazzio, Ulrich and five others was announced, the Adams’ campaign has said they intend to refund donations connected to Mazzio. On Friday Evan Thies, the campaign’s spokesperson, said told THE CITY “the Mazzio contributions are in the process of being returned to (Campaign Finance Board) CFB.” The Ulrich bribery case is now pending before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Daniel Conviser, with the next court appearance set for Oct. 23.
Mob and Towing
Moderator: Capos
Re: Mob and Towing
It's one of those industries the mob would naturally gravitate to.
All roads lead to New York.
Re: Mob and Towing
I think Fava is in Nichilo’s crew. Can’t remember if John Pennisi mentioned Fava by name but I recall a video describing a towing related sitdown with Nichilo in Coney Island.
Re: Mob and Towing
Thanks that was it. Appreciate it.
Re: Mob and Towing
Somewhat related but Mike Campi (FBI) had a great Vlad TV interview on taking down WS admin and current family strength with interesting/ new insights on Ida family, Barney, D Urso, Sammy Meatballs, Nicky Blonde plus the likely reason Al Bruno was killed which I never heard before.
He says Westside still run Port and are getting back into the Unions, meeting with union officials like the 1960s
Based on recent news, I agree with his POV that business for WS has been booming & evolving, largely thru corruption pay offs & not violence. With minimal jail time for non violent crimes it’s gonna be hard to stop their business momentum imo
They apparently have their hooks into Edgewater NJ/ mayor and have been major players in NJ Gold Coast redevelopment. The Egyptian paying off Bob Menendez is a Genovese associate and top Gold Coast developer reporting to Tona Borelli before he died. It’s likely they have been far involved in NJ Gold Coast re development 10-15 years than many would have thought.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TE_abSjTxG4
He says Westside still run Port and are getting back into the Unions, meeting with union officials like the 1960s
Based on recent news, I agree with his POV that business for WS has been booming & evolving, largely thru corruption pay offs & not violence. With minimal jail time for non violent crimes it’s gonna be hard to stop their business momentum imo
They apparently have their hooks into Edgewater NJ/ mayor and have been major players in NJ Gold Coast redevelopment. The Egyptian paying off Bob Menendez is a Genovese associate and top Gold Coast developer reporting to Tona Borelli before he died. It’s likely they have been far involved in NJ Gold Coast re development 10-15 years than many would have thought.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TE_abSjTxG4
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TommyGambino
- Full Patched
- Posts: 2620
- Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2015 8:46 am
Re: Mob and Towing
Isn't the knowledge they have about 20 years old? Only listenwd to bits as that VladTV guy is an insufferable retardTommyNoto wrote: ↑Wed Oct 11, 2023 2:43 pm Somewhat related but Mike Campi (FBI) had a great Vlad TV interview on taking down WS admin and current family strength with interesting/ new insights on Ida family, Barney, D Urso, Sammy Meatballs, Nicky Blonde plus the likely reason Al Bruno was killed which I never heard before.
He says Westside still run Port and are getting back into the Unions, meeting with union officials like the 1960s
Based on recent news, I agree with his POV that business for WS has been booming & evolving, largely thru corruption pay offs & not violence. With minimal jail time for non violent crimes it’s gonna be hard to stop their business momentum imo
They apparently have their hooks into Edgewater NJ/ mayor and have been major players in NJ Gold Coast redevelopment. The Egyptian paying off Bob Menendez is a Genovese associate and top Gold Coast developer reporting to Tona Borelli before he died. It’s likely they have been far involved in NJ Gold Coast re development 10-15 years than many would have thought.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TE_abSjTxG4
Re: Mob and Towing
True but he said he has been talking to current people. It’s not shocking that the port crew would still be very active in water front real estate development.
He had some good info on allie shades and gotti
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fred-daib ... ime-family
He had some good info on allie shades and gotti
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fred-daib ... ime-family
Re: Mob and Towing
TommyNoto wrote: ↑Wed Oct 11, 2023 2:43 pm Somewhat related but Mike Campi (FBI) had a great Vlad TV interview on taking down WS admin and current family strength with interesting/ new insights on Ida family, Barney, D Urso, Sammy Meatballs, Nicky Blonde plus the likely reason Al Bruno was killed which I never heard before.
He says Westside still run Port and are getting back into the Unions, meeting with union officials like the 1960s
Based on recent news, I agree with his POV that business for WS has been booming & evolving, largely thru corruption pay offs & not violence. With minimal jail time for non violent crimes it’s gonna be hard to stop their business momentum imo
They apparently have their hooks into Edgewater NJ/ mayor and have been major players in NJ Gold Coast redevelopment. The Egyptian paying off Bob Menendez is a Genovese associate and top Gold Coast developer reporting to Tona Borelli before he died. It’s likely they have been far involved in NJ Gold Coast re development 10-15 years than many would have thought.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TE_abSjTxG4
It sounds like it’s going to be a good book with a lot of unknown info about the mob in the late 90’s
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SonnyBlackstein
- Filthy Few
- Posts: 7806
- Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2014 2:21 am
Re: Mob and Towing
I coulda gone out, sold my story, made millions.
Don't give me your f***ing Manson lamps.
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Russ
Re: Mob and Towing
I am related from first wife to mazzeo family and also close with names towing crew. The mazzeo fought tooth and nail for everything they got I heard some stories there grandadies didn't bow down or pay protection to nobody and still had a monopoly for years. Bams paid bonnanos guy Robert something who owns it have us 5000 grand wedding gift barelyet him but wife worked there this was before robbery
How an Indicted Tow Trucker Gained Entree to the Top of the Adams Administration
How an Indicted Tow Trucker Gained Entree to the Top of the Adams Administration
Mike Mazzio helped raise nearly $400,000 for Adams’ 2021 campaign and hired the mayor’s former state Senate colleague Jeff Klein as his lobbyist — all while facing charges for illegally rigging the industry.
BY GREG B. SMITH
APRIL 15, 2025, 5:00 A.M.
In another mayoral administration, Mike Mazzio might have had a tough time opening doors at City Hall as he campaigned for a potentially lucrative contract for his truck-towing company.
For one thing, Mazzio had been charged by the Manhattan District Attorney in an indictment alleging that he participated in a mobbed-up “fraudulent monopoly” that controlled the city’s entire towing industry. What’s more, before Eric Adams was elected mayor, the city had refused to renew his company’s towing license after determining that it had overcharged hundreds of customers.
But after throwing a campaign fundraiser for Adams that generated nearly $400,000 and hiring a lobbyist with longstanding ties to the mayor, Mazzio’s company, Mike’s Heavy Duty Towing, found a place on the schedules of multiple top administration officials, including some of the mayor’s closest advisors, an investigation by THE CITY shows.
Mazzio’s offensive is a case study in how, until law enforcement investigations upended the Adams administration, supporters were able to win the ear of the mayor and some of his closest advisors despite serious integrity problems. Dubious deal-making continues to shadow City Hall as Adams gears up a re-election campaign in the aftermath of the dismissal of his own corruption charges at the Trump administration’s behest.
To penetrate the Adams administration, the tow truck operator hired as his lobbyist a former colleague of the mayor’s: Jeff Klein, who served as a state senator with Adams and was an ally. Three City Hall officials targeted by Mazzio or Klein have either been charged since then with soliciting bribes or are currently under investigation in connection with city contracts.
They include Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the mayor’s chief advisor and closest aide, who has been indicted on corruption charges, and Tim Pearson, a close Adams confidante, who is the subject of a pay-to-play investigation by the Manhattan U.S. attorney and the city Department of Investigation (DOI).
Mazzio’s goal was to win City Hall approval to tow big rigs illegally parked overnight in residential neighborhoods via a pilot program — a trial that can give participants a leg up in the awarding of a much larger project to come. Pilot participants can be designated without the usual competitive bidding process, allowing the deal to be arranged out of view and without public oversight.
His path was a well trod one, previously documented by THE CITY, with prospective vendors hawking projects to top decision makers with help from friends and associates of the mayor.
There was the Saferwatch “panic button,” an app school safety officers could activate in the event of a fire or active shooter — offered by a client of consultant Terence Banks who pitched its wares to his brothers, schools Chancellor David Banks and Deputy Mayor Phil Banks. All the Banks brothers are under investigation for the deal.
There were the Bus Patrol cameras installed in school buses to catch miscreants passing stop signs as kids got on and off the vehicles, arranged with the help of a top aide to Phil Banks who later got a high-salaried job with the company.
And there were fast charge stations for electric vehicles produced by was Gravity Technologies, whose CEO hosted a campaign fundraiser for Adams and hired the lobbying firm of Adams’ former chief of staff, Frank Carone. The administration signaled it was hiring Gravity before publicly seeking bids from other companies.
Mike’s Heavy Duty Trucking never made it that far. Just weeks after Klein stopped representing him in September 2023, Mazzio was indicted again — this time charged with bribing Adams’ first Department of Buildings Commissioner, Eric Ulrich, with cash and Mets tickets. Mazzio has pleaded not guilty and his case is pending.
Brooklyn tow truck company owner Michael Mazzio was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on bribery charges connected to indicted former Department of Buildings commissioner Eric Ulrich.
Brooklyn tow truck company owner Michael Mazzio was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on bribery charges connected to indicted former Department of Buildings commissioner Eric Ulrich.
Mazzio’s Comeback Campaign
The details of the Manhattan DA’s 2018 indictment show just how deep a hole Mazzio had to climb out of if he was to win city work. Alleging that the city’s towing industry was controlled by organized crime, the DA unsealed criminal charges against multiple tow firms in New York, including Mike’s.
Prosecutors alleged that companies without permits had been paying Mazzio to use his permit to remove vehicles from city highways as part of what they alleged was an illegal scheme to control the industry. In 2020, the city Department of Consumer and Worker Protection rejected the company’s permit renewal request, accusing the firm of gouging drivers with illegal fees of $150 to $300 per tow.
Mazzio started his redemption campaign by suing the city to get his company’s license back and won an injunction that let him continue operating. Adams’ campaign for mayor opened a new front for Mazzio.
On Aug. 8, 2021, he co-hosted a fundraiser for Adams at Russo’s on the Bay in Howard Beach, Queens, with Joseph and Anthony Livreri, owners of Aldo’s Pizzeria, the mayor’s favorite restaurant in neighboring Ozone Park. They raised $140,000 for Adams campaign. Donors included several of Mazzio’s relatives as well as vendors his company worked with, and the contributions generated more than $223,000 in public matching funds for the mayor’s campaign.
Two days after Christmas 2021, Mazzio and the Livreris got a sit-down dinner with the newly elected mayor at Aldo’s, even though Mazzio was a defendant in a criminal case.
In January 2022, the first month of the Adams administration, Mazzio spoke with Lewis-Martin, about allowing him to tow vehicles off highways during snowstorms and banning a competitor from towing on the city’s highways, prosecutors would later allege. A few months after that conversation, he dined with Lewis-Martin and Ulrich, whom Adams had named as a senior advisor and would later appoint buildings commissioner, at the Upper East Side restaurant Philippe Chow, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors later revealed that they had been secretly monitoring Ulrich’s phone and those of people close to him. They reported that they had overheard one of Mazzio’s associates claim that Ulrich had recommended a candidate to run “Consumers”— a reference to the city department that had rejected a Mike’s Heavy Duty license renewal.
“That’s a big deal for Mike,” the associate stated.
Bringing in Klein
Enter Klein, who knew Adams well from their senate days more than a decade ago. Klein was the architect of the breakaway Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), which often sided with Republicans for control of the Senate. Adams was a frequent ally of the group. On at least one occasion the pair co-sponsored legislation, a bill to help victims of home foreclosures.
Signing up Mike’s Heavy Duty for a year’s worth of lobbying work starting in August 2022, Klein soon won his meetings with the high-ranking Adams officials, which were aimed at winning Mazzio a role in a program the NYPD was rolling out to crack down on the illegally parked tractor trailers.
The program, named Operation Heavy Duty Enforcement, sought to target 18-wheelers parking overnight in residential neighborhoods, a problem that had grown worse with the surge in e-commerce warehouses across the city. Maspeth, Queens, was among the neighborhoods that bore the brunt of the problem.
“You have commercial vehicles almost every night,” said Councilmember Bob Holden (D-Queens). “I have had 700 calls [into the NYPD] so far this year. It is a huge problem. There’s limited parking in my entire district. To be taken up by these trucks? Sometimes you have 18 wheelers?”
Holden says he’s had success working with the NYPD to confront this problem, but the department has few trucks big enough to haul away scofflaw big rigs — a limitation that causes weeks of delay in getting results.
“They have four tow trucks,” Holden said. “We always are told to wait til we get the heavy duty trucks. It takes weeks.”
The launch of the operation in August 2022 involved dozens of cops hitting hot spots with summonses, books, wheel-clamps known as “boots” and NYPD tow trucks.
At about that time, the office of Philip Banks, Adams’ then deputy mayor for public safety, and Tim Pearson, then his senior advisor, became involved in the truck parking problem, according to Banks’ and Pearson’s official schedules and city lobbying records.
Over several months between September 2022 into August 2023, Klein pitched Mazzio’s services to Frank Hernandez, an NYPD lieutenant assigned to Banks’ office, and Pearson, records show.
It appears that at the time Mazzio was aware that he was, once again, under investigation. A tell-tale sign, prosecutors would later allege, came when Mazzio, Ulrich and an unnamed John Doe met on May 9, 2022, at the Cross Bay Diner in Queens and all placed their cellphones on a windowsill 10 feet from where they were sitting, presumably to keep them out of monitoring range.
That November, Ulrich resigned as buildings commissioner as reports surfaced that he was under investigation.
Klein continued to lobby on Mazzio’s behalf through 2022 and well into 2023, records show, and attended a “pilot program virtual meeting” with Hernandez and NYPD officials in February 2023. For his effort Klein collected a total of $85,000 in payments from the firm, records show.
In response to THE CITY’s questions, Klein confirmed via text that, “During the period of August 8th 2022 – August 8th 2023 I offered advice and counsel to this business, which specializes in large vehicle towing, and facilitated a meeting with Lt. Frank Hernandez of the Office of Public Safety whose office was seeking help with their growing need to tow illegally parked tractor trailers in residential neighborhoods. Ultimately, the NYPD chose to go in a different direction.”
“Mike’s Heavy Duty Towing is no longer a client,” he added.
The morning of Sept. 13, 2023, five weeks after Klein’s representation of Mike’s ended, Mazzio was arrested along with Ulrich and five co-defendants. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s sweeping indictment accused multiple players — including Mazzio — of bribing Ulrich for a variety of favors.
Also charged were two co-hosts with Mazzio of the Adams fundraiser at Russo’s on the Bay — the owners of Aldo’s Pizza, Joseph and Anthony Livreri. (The Livreris have pleaded not guilty.)
That morning Mazzio pleaded not guilty in the Ulrich case, but two weeks later he and his company resolved the 2018 mob-related case by pleading guilty to a misdemeanor count of attempted agreement in restraint of trade.
The Ulrich bribery case is pending. On Friday, Mazzio’s criminal defense attorney, James Froccaro, declined to comment.
Mazzio, meanwhile, continues his fight with the consumer protection department. His company won its 2020 licensing lawsuit early last year, a ruling the consumer department is now appealing. But meanwhile, in December 2024 DCPW rejected Mazzio’s application to renew his tow operator license, finding that he was not a person of “good moral character.”
Earlier this month, Mazzio sued.
The denial of his license renewal will “result in the demise of my company along with my reputation and goodwill,” Mazzio stated in court papers. His attorney, Melanie Wiener of the law firm Abrams Fensterman, said a Brooklyn judge granted her request for a temporary stay while the case plays out. The consumer department got the case moved to Manhattan court.
Abandoned Trucks
In the end, City Hall and the NYPD decided not to hire private tow truck firms to attack the problem of overnight truck parking in residential areas.
Why is an unanswered question.
A spokesperson for the mayor said they could not provide information on that decision because the aides involved in the discussions — Pearson and Hernandez — no longer work for the administration. Pearson and Hernandez’ boss Phil Banks both resigned last fall after law enforcement seized their phones as part of a web of ongoing investigations into whether top Adams’ aides have used their influence to benefit themselves. (The Lieutenant Benevolent’s Association relayed a message to Hernandez from THE CITY on Friday to Hernandez. Hernandez did not respond to the request.)
Trucks parked longterm along a public park in Southeast Queens.
Trucks parked long-term along a public park in Southeast Queens, March 27, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Lewis-Martin pleaded not guilty to charges that she used her influence to help out two businessmen who provided $100,000 to her son to buy a Porsche. The businessmen have stated the money was a loan, not a gift.
The tow program has remained an in-house NYPD initiative with the department relying strictly on its own trucks to do the job, according to the department’s press office. Operation Heavy Duty targeted the 113th Precinct in Queens and lasted two weeks from Aug. 15 to Aug. 26, 2022. All told, 1,142 summonses were issued, 148 boots were installed and 100 vehicles were towed.
Since then the department has conducted periodic overnight joint operations in rotating precincts in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. Through last month, these operations have issued 5,330 summonses, clamped on 1,780 boots and towed away 2,170 vehicles.
The crackdown on illegal overnight truck parking resurfaced last month with a new effort dubbed the “Overnight Truck Parking Pilot” that sets aside spaces for big rigs in three neighborhoods, charging truck operators a parking fee via an app managed by the Department of Transportation. The mayor called the plan “a win-win that will add 45 spaces for tractor trailers to communities long burdened by unregulated truck parking.”
The DOT specified streets inside industrial business zones in three neighborhoods: Flatlands in Brooklyn, Hunts Point in the Bronx and Maspeth. A data analysis by THE CITY found that the pilot targets just two of the 10 community districts with the highest number of 311 complaints about this ballooning urban headache.
Last week, a DOT spokesperson said the agency does not yet have any data to share on the success of the app program.
Mike Mazzio helped raise nearly $400,000 for Adams’ 2021 campaign and hired the mayor’s former state Senate colleague Jeff Klein as his lobbyist — all while facing charges for illegally rigging the industry.
BY GREG B. SMITH
APRIL 15, 2025, 5:00 A.M.
In another mayoral administration, Mike Mazzio might have had a tough time opening doors at City Hall as he campaigned for a potentially lucrative contract for his truck-towing company.
For one thing, Mazzio had been charged by the Manhattan District Attorney in an indictment alleging that he participated in a mobbed-up “fraudulent monopoly” that controlled the city’s entire towing industry. What’s more, before Eric Adams was elected mayor, the city had refused to renew his company’s towing license after determining that it had overcharged hundreds of customers.
But after throwing a campaign fundraiser for Adams that generated nearly $400,000 and hiring a lobbyist with longstanding ties to the mayor, Mazzio’s company, Mike’s Heavy Duty Towing, found a place on the schedules of multiple top administration officials, including some of the mayor’s closest advisors, an investigation by THE CITY shows.
Mazzio’s offensive is a case study in how, until law enforcement investigations upended the Adams administration, supporters were able to win the ear of the mayor and some of his closest advisors despite serious integrity problems. Dubious deal-making continues to shadow City Hall as Adams gears up a re-election campaign in the aftermath of the dismissal of his own corruption charges at the Trump administration’s behest.
To penetrate the Adams administration, the tow truck operator hired as his lobbyist a former colleague of the mayor’s: Jeff Klein, who served as a state senator with Adams and was an ally. Three City Hall officials targeted by Mazzio or Klein have either been charged since then with soliciting bribes or are currently under investigation in connection with city contracts.
They include Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the mayor’s chief advisor and closest aide, who has been indicted on corruption charges, and Tim Pearson, a close Adams confidante, who is the subject of a pay-to-play investigation by the Manhattan U.S. attorney and the city Department of Investigation (DOI).
Mazzio’s goal was to win City Hall approval to tow big rigs illegally parked overnight in residential neighborhoods via a pilot program — a trial that can give participants a leg up in the awarding of a much larger project to come. Pilot participants can be designated without the usual competitive bidding process, allowing the deal to be arranged out of view and without public oversight.
His path was a well trod one, previously documented by THE CITY, with prospective vendors hawking projects to top decision makers with help from friends and associates of the mayor.
There was the Saferwatch “panic button,” an app school safety officers could activate in the event of a fire or active shooter — offered by a client of consultant Terence Banks who pitched its wares to his brothers, schools Chancellor David Banks and Deputy Mayor Phil Banks. All the Banks brothers are under investigation for the deal.
There were the Bus Patrol cameras installed in school buses to catch miscreants passing stop signs as kids got on and off the vehicles, arranged with the help of a top aide to Phil Banks who later got a high-salaried job with the company.
And there were fast charge stations for electric vehicles produced by was Gravity Technologies, whose CEO hosted a campaign fundraiser for Adams and hired the lobbying firm of Adams’ former chief of staff, Frank Carone. The administration signaled it was hiring Gravity before publicly seeking bids from other companies.
Mike’s Heavy Duty Trucking never made it that far. Just weeks after Klein stopped representing him in September 2023, Mazzio was indicted again — this time charged with bribing Adams’ first Department of Buildings Commissioner, Eric Ulrich, with cash and Mets tickets. Mazzio has pleaded not guilty and his case is pending.
Brooklyn tow truck company owner Michael Mazzio was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on bribery charges connected to indicted former Department of Buildings commissioner Eric Ulrich.
Brooklyn tow truck company owner Michael Mazzio was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on bribery charges connected to indicted former Department of Buildings commissioner Eric Ulrich.
Mazzio’s Comeback Campaign
The details of the Manhattan DA’s 2018 indictment show just how deep a hole Mazzio had to climb out of if he was to win city work. Alleging that the city’s towing industry was controlled by organized crime, the DA unsealed criminal charges against multiple tow firms in New York, including Mike’s.
Prosecutors alleged that companies without permits had been paying Mazzio to use his permit to remove vehicles from city highways as part of what they alleged was an illegal scheme to control the industry. In 2020, the city Department of Consumer and Worker Protection rejected the company’s permit renewal request, accusing the firm of gouging drivers with illegal fees of $150 to $300 per tow.
Mazzio started his redemption campaign by suing the city to get his company’s license back and won an injunction that let him continue operating. Adams’ campaign for mayor opened a new front for Mazzio.
On Aug. 8, 2021, he co-hosted a fundraiser for Adams at Russo’s on the Bay in Howard Beach, Queens, with Joseph and Anthony Livreri, owners of Aldo’s Pizzeria, the mayor’s favorite restaurant in neighboring Ozone Park. They raised $140,000 for Adams campaign. Donors included several of Mazzio’s relatives as well as vendors his company worked with, and the contributions generated more than $223,000 in public matching funds for the mayor’s campaign.
Two days after Christmas 2021, Mazzio and the Livreris got a sit-down dinner with the newly elected mayor at Aldo’s, even though Mazzio was a defendant in a criminal case.
In January 2022, the first month of the Adams administration, Mazzio spoke with Lewis-Martin, about allowing him to tow vehicles off highways during snowstorms and banning a competitor from towing on the city’s highways, prosecutors would later allege. A few months after that conversation, he dined with Lewis-Martin and Ulrich, whom Adams had named as a senior advisor and would later appoint buildings commissioner, at the Upper East Side restaurant Philippe Chow, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors later revealed that they had been secretly monitoring Ulrich’s phone and those of people close to him. They reported that they had overheard one of Mazzio’s associates claim that Ulrich had recommended a candidate to run “Consumers”— a reference to the city department that had rejected a Mike’s Heavy Duty license renewal.
“That’s a big deal for Mike,” the associate stated.
Bringing in Klein
Enter Klein, who knew Adams well from their senate days more than a decade ago. Klein was the architect of the breakaway Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), which often sided with Republicans for control of the Senate. Adams was a frequent ally of the group. On at least one occasion the pair co-sponsored legislation, a bill to help victims of home foreclosures.
Signing up Mike’s Heavy Duty for a year’s worth of lobbying work starting in August 2022, Klein soon won his meetings with the high-ranking Adams officials, which were aimed at winning Mazzio a role in a program the NYPD was rolling out to crack down on the illegally parked tractor trailers.
The program, named Operation Heavy Duty Enforcement, sought to target 18-wheelers parking overnight in residential neighborhoods, a problem that had grown worse with the surge in e-commerce warehouses across the city. Maspeth, Queens, was among the neighborhoods that bore the brunt of the problem.
“You have commercial vehicles almost every night,” said Councilmember Bob Holden (D-Queens). “I have had 700 calls [into the NYPD] so far this year. It is a huge problem. There’s limited parking in my entire district. To be taken up by these trucks? Sometimes you have 18 wheelers?”
Holden says he’s had success working with the NYPD to confront this problem, but the department has few trucks big enough to haul away scofflaw big rigs — a limitation that causes weeks of delay in getting results.
“They have four tow trucks,” Holden said. “We always are told to wait til we get the heavy duty trucks. It takes weeks.”
The launch of the operation in August 2022 involved dozens of cops hitting hot spots with summonses, books, wheel-clamps known as “boots” and NYPD tow trucks.
At about that time, the office of Philip Banks, Adams’ then deputy mayor for public safety, and Tim Pearson, then his senior advisor, became involved in the truck parking problem, according to Banks’ and Pearson’s official schedules and city lobbying records.
Over several months between September 2022 into August 2023, Klein pitched Mazzio’s services to Frank Hernandez, an NYPD lieutenant assigned to Banks’ office, and Pearson, records show.
It appears that at the time Mazzio was aware that he was, once again, under investigation. A tell-tale sign, prosecutors would later allege, came when Mazzio, Ulrich and an unnamed John Doe met on May 9, 2022, at the Cross Bay Diner in Queens and all placed their cellphones on a windowsill 10 feet from where they were sitting, presumably to keep them out of monitoring range.
That November, Ulrich resigned as buildings commissioner as reports surfaced that he was under investigation.
Klein continued to lobby on Mazzio’s behalf through 2022 and well into 2023, records show, and attended a “pilot program virtual meeting” with Hernandez and NYPD officials in February 2023. For his effort Klein collected a total of $85,000 in payments from the firm, records show.
In response to THE CITY’s questions, Klein confirmed via text that, “During the period of August 8th 2022 – August 8th 2023 I offered advice and counsel to this business, which specializes in large vehicle towing, and facilitated a meeting with Lt. Frank Hernandez of the Office of Public Safety whose office was seeking help with their growing need to tow illegally parked tractor trailers in residential neighborhoods. Ultimately, the NYPD chose to go in a different direction.”
“Mike’s Heavy Duty Towing is no longer a client,” he added.
The morning of Sept. 13, 2023, five weeks after Klein’s representation of Mike’s ended, Mazzio was arrested along with Ulrich and five co-defendants. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s sweeping indictment accused multiple players — including Mazzio — of bribing Ulrich for a variety of favors.
Also charged were two co-hosts with Mazzio of the Adams fundraiser at Russo’s on the Bay — the owners of Aldo’s Pizza, Joseph and Anthony Livreri. (The Livreris have pleaded not guilty.)
That morning Mazzio pleaded not guilty in the Ulrich case, but two weeks later he and his company resolved the 2018 mob-related case by pleading guilty to a misdemeanor count of attempted agreement in restraint of trade.
The Ulrich bribery case is pending. On Friday, Mazzio’s criminal defense attorney, James Froccaro, declined to comment.
Mazzio, meanwhile, continues his fight with the consumer protection department. His company won its 2020 licensing lawsuit early last year, a ruling the consumer department is now appealing. But meanwhile, in December 2024 DCPW rejected Mazzio’s application to renew his tow operator license, finding that he was not a person of “good moral character.”
Earlier this month, Mazzio sued.
The denial of his license renewal will “result in the demise of my company along with my reputation and goodwill,” Mazzio stated in court papers. His attorney, Melanie Wiener of the law firm Abrams Fensterman, said a Brooklyn judge granted her request for a temporary stay while the case plays out. The consumer department got the case moved to Manhattan court.
Abandoned Trucks
In the end, City Hall and the NYPD decided not to hire private tow truck firms to attack the problem of overnight truck parking in residential areas.
Why is an unanswered question.
A spokesperson for the mayor said they could not provide information on that decision because the aides involved in the discussions — Pearson and Hernandez — no longer work for the administration. Pearson and Hernandez’ boss Phil Banks both resigned last fall after law enforcement seized their phones as part of a web of ongoing investigations into whether top Adams’ aides have used their influence to benefit themselves. (The Lieutenant Benevolent’s Association relayed a message to Hernandez from THE CITY on Friday to Hernandez. Hernandez did not respond to the request.)
Trucks parked longterm along a public park in Southeast Queens.
Trucks parked long-term along a public park in Southeast Queens, March 27, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Lewis-Martin pleaded not guilty to charges that she used her influence to help out two businessmen who provided $100,000 to her son to buy a Porsche. The businessmen have stated the money was a loan, not a gift.
The tow program has remained an in-house NYPD initiative with the department relying strictly on its own trucks to do the job, according to the department’s press office. Operation Heavy Duty targeted the 113th Precinct in Queens and lasted two weeks from Aug. 15 to Aug. 26, 2022. All told, 1,142 summonses were issued, 148 boots were installed and 100 vehicles were towed.
Since then the department has conducted periodic overnight joint operations in rotating precincts in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. Through last month, these operations have issued 5,330 summonses, clamped on 1,780 boots and towed away 2,170 vehicles.
The crackdown on illegal overnight truck parking resurfaced last month with a new effort dubbed the “Overnight Truck Parking Pilot” that sets aside spaces for big rigs in three neighborhoods, charging truck operators a parking fee via an app managed by the Department of Transportation. The mayor called the plan “a win-win that will add 45 spaces for tractor trailers to communities long burdened by unregulated truck parking.”
The DOT specified streets inside industrial business zones in three neighborhoods: Flatlands in Brooklyn, Hunts Point in the Bronx and Maspeth. A data analysis by THE CITY found that the pilot targets just two of the 10 community districts with the highest number of 311 complaints about this ballooning urban headache.
Last week, a DOT spokesperson said the agency does not yet have any data to share on the success of the app program.