Ex-NYPD commissioner accuses NYC mayor of 'character assassination' in $10 million defamation claim
The filing comes less than a week after the ex-commissioner, Thomas Donlon, sued Adams and his top deputies, accusing them of operating the department as a criminal racket that rewarded unqualified loyalists and punished whistleblowers. Donlon said he was sidelined for trying to clean up the corruption.
After that lawsuit was filed, Adams privately told members of a nonprofit business advocacy group at a meeting that he'd fired Donlon, 71, from his brief stint as commissioner last fall because he was 'rapidly deteriorating mentally,' according to attendees. Donlon cited news reports about those comments in his legal claim.
The department's former top spokesperson, Tarik Sheppard, who was also named in Donlon's lawsuit, told reporters that his former boss was 'going through some cognitive issues' and believed 'there was this conspiracy against him.'
Their comments amounted to a defamatory 'public character assassination' intended to 'weaponize mental health to silence a whistleblower,' Donlon's attorney, John Scola, said Monday.
Donlon, a former FBI official, was appointed by Adams in September to lead a department reeling from overlapping federal investigations and high-level resignations.
He was replaced by the current commissioner, Jessica Tisch, in November. During his short tenure, federal authorities searched Donlon's home for decades-old documents that he said were unrelated to his work at the department. He has not been publicly accused of wrongdoing in connection with that search.
In his short time as commissioner, Donlon said he uncovered 'systemic corruption' by members of the mayor's inner circle, including a scheme to reward unqualified loyalists with lucrative promotions in exchange for political favors.
In his lawsuit, Donlon accused Sheppard of misappropriating the commissioner's rubber stamp signature to give himself a raise, then threatening to kill Donlon when confronted about it.
Sheppard, who left the department in May, has denied that allegation. Inquiries to City Hall about the defamation claim were not immediately returned.
In a statement last week, a spokesperson for Adams, Kayla Mamelak Altus, described Donlon's claims as 'absurd.'
'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,' she said.
The defamation claim adds to a recent spate of litigation brought by police officals against Adams, focusing scrutiny on his leadership as he seeks re-election on a platform emphasizing managerial competence and public safety.
Earlier this month, four high-ranking former NYPD officials brought separate lawsuits accusing Adams and his deputies of allowing rampant corruption and cronyism within the police department.
In response to those suits, a spokesperson for Adams said the administration 'holds all city employees — including leadership at the NYPD — to the highest standards.'
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Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
An American sent to Canada was shocked by how furious Canadians are at the U.S.
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Van Zuylen-Wood said he and his editors hit on the idea for the article after the election of Prime Minister Mark Carney in March, which he described as 'an entire election … seemingly decided as a kind of referendum.' It solidified when Carney met with U.S. President Donald Trump two months later at the White House, during which Trump continued to talk about Canada becoming the 51st state. 'As I started to make phone calls from New York, it became clear that I wasn't fully aware, and Americans in general weren't fully aware, of the scale of the reaction against America and the depth of feeling behind that,' van Zuylen-Wood said. And so he got on a plane to Toronto. He'd been to Canada before, and had what he called 'a journalist's baseline awareness of global affairs with our northern neighbour (and) a little bit of of added know-how due to … extended family.' 'I know what the National Post is,' he said. 'I know what the Globe and Mail is. I know what the Toronto Star is. 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Even a highly protectionist JD Vance administration I don't think would include anything about the annexation threat, and I don't think it would be quite as erratic and bullying.' That said, he spoke to some Canadians who claimed they were done with America. 'I talked to people who said, 'We don't care who the next president is. This relationship is over. We don't want to go. We don't feel welcome.' And I think a lot of people maybe mean it. For some people it'll thaw, especially if the next president is a Democrat. But my sense is it kind of depends on how Canadians feel.' True drinks strong and free: Toronto will soon have an all-Canadian bar Border bitterness is devastating cross-border tourism. But one Canadian city is bucking the trend Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.
NBC News
9 hours ago
- NBC News
Trump administration sues New York over sanctuary city policies
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The administration alleged New York's sanctuary city policies 'impede the Federal Government's ability to enforce the federal immigration laws' and 'violate the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.' 'New York City has long been at the vanguard of interfering with enforcing this country's immigration laws. Its history as a sanctuary city dates back to 1989, and its efforts to thwart federal immigration enforcement have only intensified since,' the complaint reads. The Trump Justice Department meanwhile said the city's immigration policies have the 'purpose' and 'effect' of making it more difficult for federal immigration officers to carry out their jobs. 'These provisions intentionally obstruct the sharing of information envisioned and affirmatively protected by Congress, including sharing basic information such as release dates, court appearance dates, and custodial status,' the complaint read. Among the defendants named in the suit are New York Mayor Eric Adams, New York City Council Speaker and former mayoral candidate Adrienne Adams and New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch. In the suit, filed in the Eastern District of New York, the administration asks the Court to declare that the city's laws violate the Supremacy Clause and are therefore invalid. The administration also asked the court to permanently prohibit the city's departments and officials from enforcing the sanctuary city policies. New York Mayor Eric Adams, a defendant in the suit, had sought to establish a friendly relationship with administration officials, meeting with Trump Border Czar Tom Homan prior to Trump's inauguration to discuss what he called a shared goal to remove violent immigrants from the city. Adams went as far as publicly backing a bill that would roll back parts of the city's sanctuary policies to better allow cooperation with the federal government, a move that ultimately would be up to the New York City Council to enact. Despite the early outreach, Homan this week sharpened his attacks on New York, which he has described as "the biggest sanctuary city in this country," after an off-duty Customs and Border Protection agent was shot in the city. Several Trump administration officials, including Homan and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, attributed the shooting to the city's sanctuary policies. City officials have detained a person of interest and said the shooting was an attempted robbery that did not appear to be connected to the victim's job. "The sanctuary cities are now our priority. We're going to flood the zone" Homan said on Monday. "So sanctuary cities got exactly what they don't want: more agents in the community and more agents in the worksite." Adams said he "will review the lawsuit" in a statement on X that also reiterated his support for reexamining local ordinances on immigration. "We support the essence of the local laws put in place by the City Council — but I have also been clear that they go too far when it comes to dealing with those violent criminals on our streets and have urged the Council to reexamine them to ensure we can effectively work with the federal government to make our city safer," Adams said. "So far, the Council has refused." The New York City Council, City Department of Corrections, City Department of Probation and police department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Across both of his presidential terms, Trump has threatened to withhold federal funds from sanctuary jurisdictions and prosecute state or local officials that impede enforcement actions to varying degrees of success. 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In addition to New York, the Trump administration has targeted other democratic-leaning communities over policies it alleges impede the ability of federal authorities to enforce immigration laws. The administration sued the state of Illinois and city of Chicago in February, seeking to block the enforcement of a law that bars state and local law enforcement from assisting the federal government with civil immigration enforcement barring a criminal warrants. In June, the administration filed suit against the city of Los Angeles for its immigration laws, arguing they interfere and discriminate against federal agents by treating them differently from other law enforcement agents in the state by restricting access to property and individual detainees. In the suit, the administration pointed to the laws as being behind recent clashes between federal immigration officials and protestors in Los Angeles last month.
New York Post
10 hours ago
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OF COURSE ‘restorative justice' in schools doesn't work — and now the proof is in
Surprise, surprise: School 'meditation rooms' and 'harm-reduction circles,' a new study shows, don't cure juvenile delinquents but instead undermine teachers' authority and lead to more chaotic classrooms. Gee, who would've thunk it? Actually, the study — by the Manhattan Institute — confirms what we've long known about then-Mayor Bill de Blasio's push for 'restorative justice' in the name of racial equity: It was always doomed to fail. Restorative justice calls for schools to provide students and staff the opportunity to talk through conflicts instead of punishing kids with meaningful measures like suspensions. Yet the data shows that, despite an outlay of $100 million since it became the prevailing practice, incidents requiring the NYPD's school safety division more than doubled — from 1,200 in the first quarter of 2016 to 4,120 in the first quarter of 2025. The report also found that putting troubled students in 'meditation rooms' instead of suspending or kicking them out of class doesn't solve any problems, as violent incidents continued to rise and absenteeism jumped 35%. The study cites several instances of students not being punished or held accountable for deplorable behavior and violent acts. Though students at Origins High School who had subjected a Jewish teacher to Nazi salutes and threats were sent to a 'meditation room,' the harassment did not stop. This spring, an 8-year-old stabbed a staff member with a pencil and threatened classmates at Staten Island's PS 8. Parents derided the school's response — a meditation room and calls home — as entirely inadequate. A Center for Court Innovation in Brooklyn found no statistically significant benefits in schools that implemented restorative-justice practices compared to those that used a traditional disciplinary approach. The Department of Education claims suspensions have plummeted 48% over the past 10 years, resulting in 'keeping more children in class and engaged.' Duh: If your policy is to suspend fewer kids, as restorative-justice calls for, it's no shock that fewer kids get suspended. Even Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos admits the approach isn't cutting it: 'The work is far from done,' she conceded Wednesday. Yet she vowed, 'It's not leaving New York City public schools.' That's unforgivable: The study's bottom line clearly found restorative justice fuels disorder, a lack of accountability and possibly an increase in chronic absenteeism. The disruptions that prevent well-behaved kids from learning alone should be enough to ditch this policy, not to mention the violence and absenteeism that comes from it. Mayor Eric Adams, as a former cop, should know that kids who don't pay meaningful consequences for misbehavior will simply continue misbehaving. Some good news: An April 2025 executive order from Donald Trump puts the kibosh on using race as a factor in discipline, which may help push schools to return to traditional responses to misconduct and a restoration of order in classrooms. But until New York City's policy changes, the chaos will continue — and learning will suffer.
