NEW YORK — Former interim NYPD commissioner Tom Donlon is suing the department, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and several former and current police executives alleging the nation’s largest police force operated as a vast criminal enterprise designed to enrich top officials.
“A coordinated criminal conspiracy had taken root at the highest levels of City government — carried out through wire fraud, mail fraud, honest services fraud, obstruction of justice and retaliation against whistleblowers,” the complaint alleges. “This enterprise — the NYPD—was criminal at its core.”
The suit, filed Wednesday in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, is just the latest from former NYPD executives to allege corruption during Adams’ tenure. The incendiary accusations are unfolding as Adams wages a longshot bid for a second mayoral term running as an independent.
Taken together, Donlon alleged the acts amounted to racketeering, a criminal conspiracy most commonly associated with organized crime enterprises.
“This lawsuit is not a personal grievance; it is a statement against a corrupt system that betrays the public, silences truth, and punishes integrity,” Donlon said in a statement accompanying the suit. “The goal is to drive real change, hold the corrupt, deceitful, and abusively powerful accountable, and restore the voice of every honorable officer who has been silenced or denied justice.”
A spokesperson for the mayor strongly refuted the lawsuit’s allegations.
“These are baseless accusations from a disgruntled former employee who — when given the opportunity to lead the greatest police department in the world — proved himself to be ineffective,” City Hall spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus said in a statement. “This suit is nothing more than an attempt to seek compensation at the taxpayer’s expense after Mr. Donlon was rightfully removed from the role of interim police commissioner.”
The city’s Law Department declined to comment.
Donlon is asking for a federal takeover of the NYPD and the appointment of a special monitor to keep watch over the NYPD’s disciplinary process and promotion decisions.
Donlon accused top brass including former Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, his successor John Chell and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Kaz Daughtry of interfering with the department’s internal disciplinary process to stymie investigations into executive misconduct.
He further alleged the defendants in the suit wielded their authority to forge documents that were then used to promote unqualified cops and eventually retaliated against Donlon for raising concerns with the mayor about the alleged behavior.
In particular, Donlon accused Daughtry, along with former assistant chief Tarik Sheppard and Deputy Commissioner of Legal Matter Michael Gerber, of orchestrating the false arrest of his wife, who was allegedly cuffed and subjected to a full body search at a Midtown precinct.
Donlon was appointed interim police commissioner in September 2024 after the resignation of Edward Caban, who stepped down after his phone was seized as part of a federal corruption investigation. His brief tenure ended just two months later, when he was transferred into a senior advisor for public safety role before that position was eliminated in April.
The lawsuit comes just over a week after four former NYPD chiefs filed lawsuits alleging similar behavior: that top brass sought to stop ethics investigations into high-ranking members of the department and that they improperly promoted unqualified people for key positions.