A week after his home was among those raided by federal investigators probing multiple top members of Mayor Eric Adams’s administration, New York City Police Commissioner Edward Caban is resigning, according to multiple reports.
Politico reported that the Sept. 5 raids targeted the Manhattan home of First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, who shares her home with her partner, Schools Chancellor David Banks. The Queens home of Banks’s brother, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks, was also searched.
The New York Post reported that in addition to Caban, Terence Banks, another Banks brother who is a lobbyist formerly with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, was also targeted. Timothy Pearson, an aide to Adams, had his phones subpoenaed, The Post reported, citing sources it did not name.
NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban will resign today — a week after federal raids: sources https://t.co/jX2Zd5esJo pic.twitter.com/zVzgMloDGX
— New York Post (@nypost) September 12, 2024
ABC reported that a Thursday email from Caban to NYPD workers explained his reasons for stepping down.
“My complete focus has always been on the NYPD — the department and people I love and have dedicated over 30 years of service to. However, the news around recent developments has created a distraction for our department, and I am unwilling to let my attention be on anything other than our important work, or the safety of the men and women of the NYPD,” the email said.
“I hold immense respect and gratitude for the brave officers who serve this department, and the NYPD deserves someone who can solely focus on protecting and serving New York City, which is why — for the good of this city and this department — I have made the difficult decision to resign as Police Commissioner,” the email said.
Frequent Eric Adams and NYPD critic — and potential mayoral candidate — Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani reacts to the news that NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban is resigning today pic.twitter.com/JB5fShjCNQ
— Rebecca C. Lewis (@_rebeccaclewis) September 12, 2024
City Councilman Robert Holden had said Caban, who held the post less than a year, needed to go after having his home raided.
“I do think he has to do something because it does cast a bad, deep shadow over the police department,” Holden said, according to ABC.
A report in the New York Post said Caban has not been charged or accused in the federal probe.
Reading from prepared remarks, Mayor Adams says in a streamed appearance from Gracie Mansion (where he’s quarantining with COVID) that he “a short time ago” accepted “the resignation of the NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban.”
“I wish him well,” he says. pic.twitter.com/DGxktL18vA
— Chris Sommerfeldt (@C_Sommerfeldt) September 12, 2024
“Commissioner Caban is an accomplished public servant who has dedicated his life to the safety and security of the people of this great city and maintains unwavering respect for the women and men of the New York City Police Department,” Caban’s attorneys, Russell Capone and Rebekah Donaleski said in a statement.
“We have been informed by the government that he is not a target of any investigation being conducted by the Southern District of New York, and he expects to cooperate fully with the government,” they said.
A report in The New York Times said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Internal Revenue Service are focusing on James Caban, the outgoing commissioner’s twin brother.
James Caban, who was fired from the NYPD in 2001, operates a nightclub security business. James Caban’s phone was seized in last week’s raids, the Times reported.
The Post report said that NYPD Chief of Staff Raul Pintos and two commanders of precincts in Manhattan and Queens also had their phones examined in an investigation sources told the Post “travels all the way down to rank-and-file street cops.”
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