NEW YORK — Four new lawsuits allege that several close allies of New York City Mayor Eric Adams gave their friends plum jobs at the NYPD, sold promotions and covered up malfeasance at a problematic unit.
The lawsuits, filed Monday in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, serve as an uncomfortable reminder of Adams’ record as he launches his long-shot reelection bid: The incumbent touts himself as the public safety mayor but presided over several messy years at the nation’s largest police department typified by close friends and allies either leaving or being forced out over corruption investigations.
Taken together, the complaints filed Monday accused the city, the NYPD, Adams, Chief of Department John Chell, former Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, former Police Commissioner Edward Caban and former Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks of subverting department policy for illicit aims.
Joseph Veneziano, previously assistant chief of the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau, accused Adams, Caban and Maddrey in one lawsuit of retaliating against him after he probed allegations of overtime abuse and assisted with an outside probe by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office into Maddrey’s conduct at the department.
Veneziano alleges he was transferred to a no-show job at the Transit Bureau in response to his scrutiny of overtime and cooperation with the outside investigation.
A second lawsuit accuses the mayor, Caban, Chell and Maddrey of retaliating against former Chief of Professional Standards Matthew Pontillo for voicing concerns about the dramatic rise in police chases under Chell, who was then chief of patrol, as well as the improper use of body-worn cameras by a controversial unit touted by Adams.
Pontillo alleges the mayor, Caban, Chell and Maddrey forced him into retirement after he raised issues with the department’s loosened car-chase standards and produced a report showing members of the Community Response Team, a specialized unit promoted by Adams, would activate their body-worn cameras after the start of an interaction, which led Pontillo to believe the stops themselves were impermissible.
The other two lawsuits filed Monday accuse NYPD brass of subverting the traditional promotion structure to get their friends jobs within the Criminal Task Force Division, a highly sought-after unit.
Former Chief of Detectives James Essig, one of the plaintiffs, claimed in his lawsuit that he began noticing unqualified candidates being posted to the Special Victims Unit, which investigates sex crimes, in early 2023.
After the resignation of former Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell — who stepped down after being continually undermined by top Adams aides — Essig alleged that Caban and Maddrey acted on behalf of the mayor to offer him an ultimatum: take a demotion and pay cut, or retire. Essig retired in September of that year, according to the suit.
One of Essig’s deputies, Christopher McCormack, similarly alleged in a separate suit that he was retaliated against after rejecting some of the candidates proffered by close aides to Adams. He also named Banks, the former deputy mayor for public safety, in his complaint. Those picks, who McCormack found to be unqualified, were eventually placed on elite teams anyway.
One candidate allegedly referred by Banks told McCormack he wanted into the “El Dorado” unit tasked with investigating money laundering because the name “sounded cool,” according to the lawsuit. McCormack found the applicant to be unqualified. Banks' pick allegedly made it onto the team anyway.
Each of the complainants included a monetary angle to their grievances. After each of them left city service, City Hall gave managerial staff at the NYPD a pay hike they missed out on.
The suits are just the latest reminder of the chaos that reigned at the department under Adams and the unresolved criminal investigations into some of his closest and most loyal aides that could come back to bite him on the stump.
Caban, for example, is reportedly being probed for a pay-to-play scheme involving promotions — a probe that was referenced in one of the suits. He was also being eyed by authorities for an alleged kickback scheme involving his twin brother and security at New York City nightclubs.
Maddrey was forced to resign after reports that he sexually assaulted an underling and gave her overtime in exchange.
And Banks had his phone taken by federal agents as part of a wide-ranging probe last year.
Mayoral spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus said the city would review the lawsuits filed Monday and defended the integrity of the NYPD, which is now led by Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
"The Adams administration holds all city employees — including leadership at the NYPD — to the highest standards, and our work at the department speaks for itself: crime continues to topple month after month both above and below ground, with our city seeing the lowest number of shootings in recorded history," she said in a statement. "That is no coincidence — it’s thanks to the Adams administration’s laser focus on public safety."
Adams is running in the general election on an independent ballot line after dropping out of the Democratic primary amid a now-defunct criminal bribery case. He has been touting decreases in major crimes — though has POLITICO has reported, the overall picture is much more complicated — and has cast himself as the candidate needed to keep the city on the right track.
The lawsuits filed Monday, movement in any of the state or federal investigations, or new allegations of malfeasance could easily become cannon fodder for his opponents, who include Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, fellow independent candidates Andrew Cuomo and Jim Walden, and GOP candidate Curtis Sliwa. The mayor’s management record could become an especially potent line of attack for the more moderate hopefuls whose politics — and in the case of Cuomo, his base of Black voters — overlap with Adams.
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