On February 23, 2018, Talib Lokhandwala — a Construction Project Administrator with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and former senior director of mentoring programs for the New York City Transit Authority — was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison after pleading guilty on October 3, 2017, in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn to bribery charges arising from his solicitation and acceptance of $152,420 in cash payments from two contractors performing work on federally funded NYCTA subway station projects. Chief U.S. District Judge Dora L. Irizarry also imposed three years of supervised release, a $20,000 fine, and ordered forfeiture of $136,420. Lokhandwala, who held direct sign-off authority over contractor invoices and work orders, ran the scheme from March 2009 through May 2015, instructing contractors to make bribe payments to Bhavna Associates, Inc. — a shell consulting company he and his wife incorporated solely to receive and disguise the payments — threatening to bar non-compliant contractors from future MTA projects. The case was investigated jointly by the U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General and the MTA's own Inspector General after federal exposure through FTA grant funding triggered scrutiny. On May 30, 2018, the Federal Transit Administration debarred Lokhandwala from federal procurement programs for three years. Among the contractors forced to pay, at least one small construction firm continued routing payments for years out of fear their active subway contracts would be killed — their principal later told investigators the payments felt less like a bribe and more like a tax they had no choice but to keep filing.