He ran the agency that decides whether New York City buildings are safe. Prosecutors say he also ran a side business in favors, paid in cash, Mets tickets and a custom suit.
Eric Ulrich, the former Buildings Commissioner under Mayor Eric Adams, went on trial in Manhattan on October 19, 2026. It is the first Adams-era corruption case to reach a courtroom. He denies the charges. He has not been convicted of anything, and the Manhattan District Attorney’s allegations below are exactly that: allegations.
Cold Open
A pizzeria gets shut down for mice in February 2022. Prosecutors say the owner’s friend, a former councilman by then working in the mayor’s administration, gets it a fast re-inspection. It reopens within three days. The owner allegedly sends $300, and that money allegedly ends up at a casino.
That is one small scene in a case prosecutors say adds up to more than $150,000 in cash and gifts.
The Record
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the city’s Department of Investigation announced the charges on September 13, 2023. According to the joint DA and DOI announcement, Ulrich, a former City Council member, senior advisor to the mayor and Buildings Commissioner, was charged in state Supreme Court with conspiracy, bribe receiving and offering a false instrument for filing. Six associates were charged with bribery. The announcement said all were presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
The alleged conduct ran from January 2021 through November 1, 2022. Ulrich resigned as commissioner in November 2022, City & State reported. One of the original indictments has since been dismissed, according to that report.
Opening arguments came before Justice Daniel Conviser in a bench trial, meaning a judge, not a jury, will decide. According to QNS, testimony was scheduled for October 19 to 21 and October 27 to 29. A DA spokesperson told City & State the trial is expected to take about a month.
Co-defendant Michael Mazzio, who owns Mike’s Heavy Duty Towing, is on trial alongside Ulrich. Brothers Anthony and Joseph Livreri, who ran an Ozone Park pizzeria, pleaded guilty last month, according to both City & State and QNS.
The Receipts
Here is what prosecutors allege, as reported by QNS and the 2023 announcement.
Mazzio and the towing company: Ulrich allegedly helped resolve a licensing problem with a city agency. In return, prosecutors say, Mazzio bought a Mets season ticket package worth nearly $10,000 in Ulrich’s name, plus Subway Series tickets. They also say Ulrich helped Mazzio’s daughter move to a better-paying city job.
The pizzeria and the bakery: after the 2022 health closure, a quick re-inspection. For a Queens bakery hit by a fire, prosecutors allege Ulrich helped get a vacate order rescinded in March 2022. City & State reports the Livreri brothers admitted paying Ulrich $4,000 for that.
The wider circle: the 2023 announcement also alleges a heavily discounted luxury apartment from a developer who wanted a zoning change, and a custom suit and a painting from a filing representative seeking help with buildings department matters. Those defendants are not the ones on trial here, and the allegations against them are allegations.
Prosecutors told the court Ulrich was a “compromised politician” who sold access, and called it “public power, private gain,” according to City & State. They say gambling drove the need for cash.
The defense says none of it was bribery. His lawyer told the court that Ulrich struggled with gambling and alcohol, borrowed from friends, and that the money was loans between friends with no strings attached. “A bribe takes two,” the lawyer said, per City & State.
The Pattern
Two features of the case stand out. First, the alleged currency was small and personal: tickets, a suit, a few hundred dollars, a few thousand. Second, the alleged payoff was not small: the power to reopen a restaurant, lift a vacate order, unstick a license.
That is the pattern prosecutors describe. Ordinary people wait in line for inspections and permits. According to the DA, a circle of friends skipped it.
The Verdict
The following is editorial interpretation, not reported fact.
The Legitimacy Gap is simple. A buildings commissioner holds a public trust: the same rules for every owner, every restaurant, every bakery. If a friendship can move that line, the rule was never a rule.
Ulrich is presumed innocent, and a judge will decide whether the evidence proves what prosecutors say. The defense argument, that these were loans between friends, is now being tested in court. But the questions do not wait for a verdict. Why were so many favors flowing through one man’s friendships? Who else saw it? And why did it take until 2026 for an Adams-era case to reach trial?
Your Verdict
Bribes, or loans between friends? Read the sources above and decide. Then tell us what you think.
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