2 plead guilty to accepting bribes to speed up East Hampton building permits

Two people accused of accepting cash bribes from contractors to accelerate building permits in East Hampton Town have pleaded guilty and agreed to community service, probation and financial penalties in deals with the judge that will allow them to avoid jail time, their lawyers said.

Evelyn Calderon, 47, a suspended senior office assistant in the East Hampton Town Building Department, and Ryan Benitez, 38, a former building inspector there, pleaded guilty this week to five counts of third-degree bribe receiving, class D felonies, and five counts of official misconduct, class A misdemeanors.

Under deals struck with Suffolk County Justice Timothy Mazzei, both are expected to be sentenced to 840 hours of community service and five years of probation, and must each pay approximately $29,000 to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s asset forfeiture fund.

The deals were confirmed to Newsday by Edward Burke Jr., Calderon’s attorney, and Matt Tuohy, Benitez’s attorney. Calderon and Benitez are scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 2, according to online court records.

Prosecutors alleged that Calderon, of Mastic, and Benitez, of East Hampton, prioritized applications from four contractors who paid a total of $16,100 in bribes over five occasions between June 2024 and January 2025, despite the department’s practice of processing applications chronologically. Building permits that normally could take months were allegedly issued within days after payments were made, according to the district attorney’s office.

With their guilty pleas, Calderon and Benitez "have admitted to corrupting a process that must remain fair and impartial," Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said in a statement.

"Public servants are entrusted to serve their communities, not their own wallets," Tierney said.

Calderon and Benitez surrendered to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office and were arraigned on April 2. They faced 2⅓ to 7 years in prison if convicted on the indicted charges, the DA's office said at the time.

The allegations emerged as the East Hampton Building Department was struggling with a backlog of permit applications and long waits for approvals. Town officials said they launched an internal investigation in September 2024 after concerns about potential misconduct were brought to their attention and they referred the matter to the district attorney’s office.

In statements this week, East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez blamed Calderon and Benitez for disrupting the building department’s operations.

"What happened was a violation of the public’s trust, and it was completely unacceptable," she said.

Benitez resigned from his position in January. Calderon has been suspended by the East Hampton Town Board pending the outcome of the case.

The town has since made significant changes to the department, including hiring new inspectors and leadership. The town is on track to clear the application backlog by the end of the year, its chief building inspector has said.