East Hampton Building Department Bribe Scandal: The Line Wasn’t Moving — Unless You Knew Someone

A bribery indictment pulls back the curtain on a building department where delays were expected—and speed, allegedly, had a price.

In East Hampton, waiting is part of the routine. You wait for approvals, inspections, and a call back. Builders grumble about delays, brokers tell their clients to brace themselves, and homeowners learn—sometimes painfully—that nothing moves fast in the town’s building office.

But occasionally, things did move along.

Prosecutors say that wasn’t by chance. It had a price.

Grand Jury Indicts Two Former EH Town Employees

A Suffolk County grand jury indicted two former town employees—Evelyn Calderon, an office assistant with years on the job, and Ryan Benitez, a building inspector—accusing them of taking cash to quietly fast-track some projects. Between mid-2024 and early 2025, the arrangement was straightforward: pay, and your application jumped ahead.

The department’s system was already strained. Applications should have been processed in order—a slow but steady procession through growing queues. Investigators say that when money changed hands, this order vanished. Files got pulled forward. Inspections were scheduled more quickly. Permits that might normally take months appeared in days.

The Alleged Cash Grab Flow

The indictment lays out a pattern: cash went to Calderon, part of it passed along promptly to Benitez, and then the approval process kicked into gear. Five cases involve various contractors and payments between $1,500 and $6,000.

Both were arraigned on Thursday on felony bribery and misdemeanor misconduct charges and released while awaiting further court hearings.

If the transactions sound cold and businesslike, the context was anything but.

Building Department Gridlock

For over a year, the department was unraveling. Staff departures piled up, leadership thinned. New regulations and software were added, but the office already struggled to keep up. The result was a kind of administrative gridlock felt by anyone trying to build, sell, or renovate in town.

Calls flooded in by the hundreds daily. Hours were cut just to handle the volume. Projects stalled, and frustration grew.

Who You Knew and What You Could Pay

In that environment, rumors took root. Quietly, unofficially, but persistently. Whispers about certain jobs moving faster. About who you knew. About what you could pay.

Those concerns reached town leaders in 2024 when then-Chief Building Inspector Joe Palermo raised alarms, sparking a district attorney investigation. After that, the inquiry stayed mostly under wraps even as the department continued to lose staff and struggle.

By spring, when Calderon was suspended and later unpaid, the department was deep in transition. Palermo was gone. Inspectors resigned or were pushed out. New hires arrived, plan reviews moved outside, policies changed, and were reconsidered as officials tried to wrest control of a spiraling system.

The turmoil wasn’t limited to the office. It spilled over into local politics, where the department became a campaign issue and a symbol of broader dysfunction.

Now, with criminal charges filed, the story has shifted.

The question is no longer just why the line didn’t move.

It’s who got to step ahead of it.