Man Arrested on Charges of Improperly Obtaining Handgun Licenses

A member of a volunteer security force in Borough Park, Brooklyn, was charged on Monday with offering bribes to New York Police Department officials to obtain handgun permits — the first arrest directly linked to the widening federal investigation into police corruption and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s fund-raising efforts.

The man, Alex Lichtenstein, 44, was arrested on Sunday at his home in Pomona, N.Y., by agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and detectives from the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau, officials said. A criminal complaint unsealed on Monday in United States District Court in Manhattan charged him with bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery.

Deputy Inspector Michael T. Endall, who heads the Police Department’s License Division, was one of three men transferred from that division on Monday, a statement from the department said. Inspector Endall was reassigned to an administrative position pending further review; Sgt. David Villanueva and Officer Richard Ochetal were placed on modified assignment, and have also been transferred.

Mr. Lichtenstein tried to bribe an officer to help him obtain pistol licenses, offering him $6,000 per license and telling him he had already obtained an estimated 150 permits over the last year through his connections at the License Division, a claim the officer secretly recorded, the complaint said.