Article: 28 NEW YORK CITY RESTAURANT INSPECTORS ACCUSED OF EXTORTION

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This food-loving city was left with municipal indigestion today after investigators accused 28 former or current health inspectors of extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from 300 restaurants by threatening to have them closed.

The three-year undercover probe forced city officials to suspend temporarily the weekly list of restaurant health-code violations published in local newspapers, saying that it is totally unreliable.

Some restaurants with cockroach infestation or other unsanitary conditions were allowed to remain open after paying cash bribes of $500 to $1,000 or more, while others that refused to pay were closed for fictitious sightings of "mouse droppings" and ...

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