The District’s acting chief of the illegal construction inspection unit remains on paid leave as the District investigates allegations that he conspired to extort developers out of thousands of dollars, city officials said.
The D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs has been investigating Juan Scott since developers Todd Zirkle, Vanessa Humphreys and her husband, FBI agent Kevin Humphreys, accused him last month of impersonating an officer and trying to shake them down.
DCRA spokeswoman Karyn-Siobhan Robinson said she could not comment on personnel matters and was not allowed to say why Scott was on leave.
Scott has been acting chief of the division that enforces permits at building sites for nearly two years and earns $67,000 a year, according to D.C. records. He was hired in 1999.
Scott could not be reached Thursday.
Zirkle and the Humphreys said that Scott slapped a stop-work order on their nearly completed $1.2 million project in the 1100 block of Fifth Street Northwest. When Vanessa Humphreys went to his office to ask about the violations, he threatened to have her arrested, according to an affidavit.
The developers sent their architect, Yaw Agipong, a former DCRA official, to talk to Scott, and Agipong returned to tell them they could make their problems disappear if they paid $20,000, according to the affidavit.
The FBI began taping Zirkle’s conversations with Agipong and housing officials. Zirkle was wired when he met Agipong in a warehouse with $17,000 in cash and $3,000 check addressed to the DCRA, according to the affidavit.
FBI agents detained Agipong, but he was not arrested, according to records. Agipong told The Examiner that he is cooperatingwith the FBI.
