Fire Department Employee Pleads Guilty to Taking Bribes From Day Care Centers A longtime New York Fire Department employee who supervised safety inspections of day care centers pleaded guilty on Friday to accepting thousands of dollars in bribes from operators who took part in a program that subsidizes day care costs for low-income parents. The employee, Carlos Montoya, 54, entered his plea in Federal District Court in Manhattan less than a month after his arrest in a continuing investigation of what the authorities have said was a $1 million fraud and bribery scheme involving corrupt city employees and day care operators. Mr. Montoya, who was responsible for certifying that day care centers complied with fire safety standards, admitted in court that he took money in exchange for creating fraudulent temporary certificates of occupancy for the centers. When the judge, Paul G. Gardephe, asked whether he had accepted the payments with the intent of being "influenced or rewarded" with respect to his official duties, Mr. Montoya responded, "Yes." A federal prosecutor, Harris Fischman, told the judge that fraud amounting to tens of thousands of dollars could be directly attributed to Mr. Montoya's part in the scheme. Mr. Montoya, of Brooklyn, had been a fire standards inspector with the Fire Department since 1993 and a supervising inspector since at least 2005, according to a criminal complaint. The Fire Department said Friday that it would move to dismiss Mr. Montoya, who had been suspended without pay. So far, six city employees and eight day care operators have pleaded guilty in the investigation, said Rose Gill Hearn, the commissioner of the city's Department of Investigation. Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said Mr. Montoya's "greed motivated him to circumvent and/or completely ignore fire safety regulations, compromising the safety of hundreds of infants and children at day care facilities throughout New York City." Mr. Montoya was the first Fire Department employee to be charged in the investigation. The other city employees worked for the Human Resources Administration, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and the Administration for Children's Services. The authorities, in announcing the investigation in August 2010, outlined a scheme that involved a group of Russian-speaking immigrants who controlled more than 30 day care centers in Brooklyn and on Staten Island. Mr. Montoya, who did not comment after the proceeding, faces a maximum of 10 years in prison when he is sentenced on June 11. His lawyer, Robert Osuna, noting that his client had "accepted responsibility for his actions," added, "We hope the court will take into consideration his entire life, and not just the events that brought him here today."