Overview
- The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection signed a memorandum of understanding Thursday to begin coordinated investigations into wage theft, tenant harassment, and fraud targeting immigrants.
- Under the agreement the agencies will share data, files and investigative strategy so cases can move on the same timeline and, where appropriate, pursue civil remedies and criminal charges at once.
- Officials said the partnership preserves each office’s independent legal authority and will limit information-sharing to what is permitted by law, including protection of confidential material.
- The offices will launch boroughwide outreach with labor, consumer and immigration groups to help victims file complaints and to educate communities about worker and consumer rights.
- The new pact builds on recent Manhattan enforcement work — including indictments and guilty pleas in wage-theft, mobile vendor theft and rental-scam cases — and could increase deterrence by making enforcement faster and more coordinated.