A former Suffolk County employee from Wading River pleaded guilty Wednesday to accepting cash bribes and falsifying license paperwork while working in the Suffolk County Department of Labor, Licensing and Consumer Affairs, Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney announced.
Brianna Hassett, 33, pleaded guilty March 25 to attempted bribe receiving in the third degree, a class E felony, before Acting Supreme Court Justice Steven A. Pilewski, according to the district attorney’s office.
Prosecutors said Hassett was working as an office assistant in the department’s licensing unit in late January 2025 when she, acting in concert with her husband, Esteban Bermudez, accepted a cash bribe and falsified an application for a home improvement license. In exchange for a separate cash bribe, she also provided questions and answers to the proficiency examination required for Suffolk County to issue a vocational license, according to investigators.
Hassett and Bermudez, 35, were arrested Feb. 13, 2025. Hassett resigned from her county job on May 14, 2025, the district attorney’s office said.
Bermudez also pleaded guilty March 25, admitting to offering a false instrument in the first degree, according to prosecutors.
Hassett is due back in court for sentencing on May 27, 2026, when she is expected to receive a prison term of 1 ½ to 3 years, prosecutors said. Bermudez is also scheduled to be sentenced that day and is expected to receive five years’ probation.
Editor’s note: Criminal charges are accusations. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
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