Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
CityTime Crook Pleads Guilty As Defendant List Grows
By
Garth Johnston
Published Feb 11, 2011
Modified Feb 11, 2011
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
By
Garth Johnston
Published Feb 11, 2011
Modified Feb 11, 2011
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
The mess of a scandal that it is the city's bloated CityTime payroll project got more interesting yesterday as a new indictment was unsealed and one of the men charged in the scheme pled guilty in a bid for leniency.
The bribery and other charges against Victor Natanzon could carry a maximum 40 year sentence, so he had good reason to flip. According to newly unsealed papers Natanzon admits to paying a $20k bribe last fall to alleged scheme mastermind Mark Mazer. Mazer also reportedly forced Natanzon to "kick back 80% of his CityTime projects" along with regular $5k payments.
And that isn't the only new development in this constant headache for Bloomberg's third term. Officials added another defendant to the case, a cousin of Mazer's named Anna Makovetskaya. Meanwhile another defendant in the case, 61-year-old Scott Berger, apparently died on December 19 of a heart attack.
And the list of defendants may be about to grow even more. SAIC, the major defense contractor in charge of the $700+ million project, went and fired an executive, Carl Bell, after an internal review "found he approved timesheets for a highly paid CityTime consultant for years even though the consultant did no work on the project," according to a Daily News source. Bell is the third SAIC employee involved in the project fired in recent weeks. A project manager and a CityTime consultant were also recently let go.
And now that prosecutors have themselves a major witness involved in the mess, this is bound to get a whole lot more interesting. Of the $80 million that is thought to have been stolen from city coffers in the scheme, investigators have so far recovered more than $26 million from defendant's bank accounts.
Tagged
citytime
citytime scam
mark mazer
saic
Victor Natanzon
Garth Johnston
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
Deer are all over New Jersey roads looking for sex, state officials warn
Mid-October through mid-December is deer mating season, which can be a danger to drivers as the sex-seeking creatures cross roadways throughout the Garden State.
By
Rosemary Misdary
Published Oct 16, 2026 at 4:22 p.m. ET
Man messaged 'I got straight poison' before giving NYC college students fentanyl, feds say
A transcript from an April court hearing sheds new light on what transpired at Fashion Institute of Technology.
By
Samantha Max
News
Man messaged 'I got straight poison' before giving NYC college students fentanyl, feds say
A transcript from an April court hearing sheds new light on what transpired at Fashion Institute of Technology.
By
Samantha Max
Inside the plan to fix the nearly collapsed Pfizer Building, 1/64th of an inch at a time
By
David Brand
School bus carrying autistic students got lost in Brooklyn for 4 hours last year
By
Jessica Gould
NYC’s bridges can last 'forever,' if we take care of them
By
Clayton Guse
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .