Two retired sanitation workers have been fined $2,000 each for accepting $5 tips for hauling off a big pile of trash in Queens two years ago. The workers, Robert Bracone and Rene Torres, admitted to soliciting and accepting a gratuity for picking up the trash, which is obviously part of their ordinary job description. But to be fair, this was no ordinary trash heap. According to Torres and Bracone, it consisted of "two pieces of wood board, two bundles of wood, two bags of recycling, a rug, and five bags of household garbage."
The mound of refuse was left outside a three-family residence in Corona, Queens in the middle of December, 2011. In their disposition, Torres admitted to arriving at the house and asking "about twenty dollars that the resident's girlfriend had said she would leave for me. The resident informed us that he only had ten dollars. Bracone and I then removed all the waste, after which the resident gave Bracone and me five dollars each."
Both Bracone and Torres retired from the Sanitation Department during the course of the investigation, no doubt living large off their nefarious windfall. But that's all over now that the trash heap has spoken.
