NEW YORK – New York City’s acting police chief announced late Saturday that federal authorities had executed search warrants on his homes the day past.
Thomas Donlon, who took over as interim commissioner just per week ago following the resignation of his predecessor, made a press release in regards to the police department's search.
“On Friday, September 20, federal authorities executed search warrants at my residences. They seized materials that came into my possession approximately 20 years ago and have nothing to do with my work with the New York Police Department,” the statement said.
“This is not a matter for the ministry and the ministry will not comment on it,” he added.
The statement didn’t specify what the investigation was about, which federal agencies were involved or what “materials” had been seized.
The inexplicable and surprising search got here at a time when New York Mayor Eric Adams' administration is rocked by other federal investigations.
Fabien Levy, the town's deputy mayor for communications, said: “As we have said repeatedly, we expect all team members to fully comply with any police investigation.”
Just per week ago, the previous police chief, Edward Caban, resigned after federal authorities confiscated his electronic devices as a part of an investigation that also involved his brother, a former police officer.
Federal agents have also seized phones belonging to the town's public schools superintendent, a senior deputy mayor, Adams' top public safety adviser and others in recent weeks. Investigators previously searched homes related to Adams' top campaign fundraiser and the Democratic Party's director of Asian affairs.
Last fall, federal agents also seized Adams' phone as he left an event.
No charges were filed in reference to any of those searches, and it was unclear whether there was any connection to the search involving Donlon, who until a number of days ago was not a part of the Adams administration.
An FBI spokesman declined to comment. An email in search of comment from a spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Manhattan was not immediately returned. A text message sent late Saturday night to Adams' top spokesman was also not immediately returned.
Donlon spent a long time with the FBI working on terrorism cases, including the investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and an attack on a U.S. Navy destroyer in 2000.
About 20 years ago, he was a high-ranking FBI anti-terrorism officer in New York.
From 2009 to 2010, Donlon headed the New York State Department of Homeland Security before moving into the private security industry.
The selection of an outsider with a protracted profession in federal law enforcement – but who had not previously worked for the NYPD – seemed on the time to be a potentially stabilizing step for the police force after Caban's resignation.
Caban and his brother James Caban, who runs a security company for nightclubs, had denied any wrongdoing through their lawyers.
Adams, who’s in his first term, has said he won’t be distracted by the investigation and can proceed to serve the town.
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