By Michael R. Sisak, Jake Offenhartz and David B. Caruso | Related Press
NEW YORK — New York Metropolis’s interim police commissioner revealed late Saturday that federal authorities had executed search warrants at his houses the day past.
Thomas Donlon, who turned the interim commissioner only one week in the past after the resignation of his predecessor, issued an announcement on the search by way of the police division.
“On Friday, September 20, federal authorities executed search warrants at my residences. They took materials that came into my possession approximately 20 years ago and are unrelated to my work with the New York City Police Department,” the assertion mentioned.
“This is not a department matter, and the department will not be commenting,” he added.
The assertion didn’t tackle what the investigation was about, which federal authorities have been concerned or what “materials” had been seized.
The unexplained and stunning search comes because the administration of New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams has been reeling from different federal legislation enforcement investigations.
Fabien Levy, town’s deputy mayor for communications, mentioned: “As we have repeatedly said, we expect all team members to fully comply with any law enforcement inquiry.”
Only a week in the past, the earlier police commissioner, Edward Caban, resigned after federal authorities seized his digital gadgets as a part of an investigation that additionally concerned his brother, a former police officer.
Federal brokers even have seized telephones in latest weeks from the pinnacle of town’s public faculties, a prime deputy mayor, Adams’ prime public security adviser and others. Beforehand, investigators searched houses linked to Adams’ prime marketing campaign fundraiser and the Democrat’s Asian affairs director.
Final autumn, federal brokers additionally seized Adams’ cellphone as he left an occasion.
Prices haven’t been introduced in reference to any of these searches and it was unclear whether or not there was any connection to the search involving Donlon, who wasn’t a part of the Adams administration till a couple of days in the past.
Donlon spent many years with the FBI, the place he labored on terrorism circumstances together with the investigation into the 1993 bombing of the World Commerce Middle, the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and a 2000 assault on a U.S. Navy destroyer.
Roughly 20 years in the past he was a prime counterterrorism official for the FBI in New York.
From 2009 to 2010, Donlon led New York state’s Workplace of Homeland Safety earlier than going into the non-public sector safety trade.
Adams appointed Donlon as his commissioner final week and he assumed the publish on Sept. 13, one week in the past Friday.
The selection of an outsider with a protracted profession in federal legislation enforcement — however no historical past of working with the NYPD — appeared on the time to be a doubtlessly stabilizing transfer for the police division after Caban’s resignation.
Caban and his brother, James Caban, who runs a nightlife safety enterprise, had each denied any wrongdoing by way of their attorneys.
By means of all of it, Adams, who’s in his first time period, has mentioned he received’t be distracted by the investigations and can proceed to serve town.
