New York City’s acting police commissioner said Saturday night that federal agents searched his homes and seized items the day before.
Acting Commissioner Thomas G. Donlon, whom Mayor Eric Adams had chosen to lead the police department nine days earlier, said the search warrants executed by officers were not related to the department, which has been caught up in a series of federal criminal investigations swirling around the mayor’s administration.
“They took documents that came into my possession approximately 20 years ago and have no connection to my work with the New York City Police Department,” Donlon said in a department news release issued shortly after 11 p.m. “This is not a department matter, and the department will not comment.”
Mr. Donlon did not provide details about the items seized, how many homes were searched or where they were located. He also did not say which agency conducted the searches. The FBI’s New York office said early Sunday that it would not comment on the case.
Mr. Adams did not address the investigations Sunday on his radio show, “Hear From the Mayor” on WBLS.
Mr. Donlon’s predecessor, Edward A. Caban, resigned after federal agents seized his phone on Sept. 4.
The Police Department is under scrutiny in one of four federal investigations rocking Mr. Adams’s administration. Those investigations have involved searches and seizures targeting high-ranking officials, including Mr. Caban. The specter of the police investigation casts doubt on Mr. Caban’s ability to oversee a department of more than 30,000 officers.
He resigned on September 12, saying the investigation had become a distraction. The administration had asked for his resignation, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Donlon, a Bronx native, has extensive experience in federal law enforcement, including with the FBI. He has held positions in counterterrorism in the United States and abroad, as well as in security for Wall Street firms. Most recently, he led a private security and consulting firm, Global Security Resolutions, which he founded in 2020.
It is unclear what job Mr Donlon held when the documents sought by the agents came into his possession.
From 2002 to 2003, he was head of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Center in New York and worked for the agency’s National Threat Center until 2005, according to a news release from a New York State Senate committee that later considered his nomination to head the state’s Office of Homeland Security. Mr. Adams, then a state senator, headed the committee. In 2005, Mr. Donlon joined Credit Suisse.
When Mr. Adams announced Mr. Donlon’s appointment as acting commissioner this month, he called him “a seasoned law enforcement professional who has worked at the local, state, federal and international levels.”
Mr. Donlon for his part promised to “maintain the highest standards of integrity and transparency.”
