The city turned a blind eye for years while a Queen’s tow company monopolized services on many Big Apple highways and ripped off thousands of drivers in the process, a bombshell new lawsuit alleges.
The class-action suit, filed Saturday in Manhattan Supreme Court, seeks more than $58 million in damages for the duped motorists from the NYPD, the city Department of Consumer and Worker Protection and Runway Towing Corp. It alleges city officials let the company run an illegal “racketeering enterprise” at the expense of unsuspecting motorists.
The suit also accuses the NYPD of repeatedly extending Runway’s contract since 2013 without competitive bidding and, in the process, ignoring many complaints the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection was getting about the company’s alleged lawbreaking, which included underpaying workers and illegally compensating them with cash off the books.
The two city agencies “conspired … to allow Runway to operate … even though at least six years ago motorists were telling them that Runway is overcharging consumers,” said lawyer Gary Rosen, who represents Runway customers and ex-staffers in the lawsuit.
The suit claims Runway has earned more than $200 million since 2010 off its NYPD contract to provide roadside assistance and towing services on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway; Kosciusko Bridge; the Cross Island Parkway in Queens; sections of the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn and Queens; Brooklyn’s Gowanus Expressway and Prospect Expressway; and the Staten Island Expressway, West Shore Expressway, Korean War Veterans Parkway and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Expressway on Staten Island.
It also alleges the company relies on shady practices to drive up its profits, including instructing tow operators to bring vehicles they pick up to the company’s office in Ozone Park — no matter where they break down.
It’s a move that generates hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of extra dollars in unnecessary towing and storage costs for the public per vehicle, former Runway workers and customers told The Post.
Mary Olsen, 62, said she had no choice but to give away her 2000 Nissan Altima to Runway after it was rear-ended and totaled on the Staten Island Expressway two years back. She said a Runway tow truck brought the car to the Ozone Park storage facility more than 20 miles away without her consent — and without providing a cheaper option, such as towing it to a parking space off the nearest exit or a nearby auto body shop.
