Top officials at the New York City police department doled out prized promotions to unqualified “friends and cronies,” according to a bombshell lawsuit that also accuses a former police commissioner of selling promotions for up to $15,000.
James Essig, a former NYPD chief of detectives, says in the suit that the improper promotions were pushed by former NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban and former Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, both of whom resigned in late 2024 amid unrelated scandals.
The lawsuit says that Essig, who retired in 2023, raised concerns over the promotions and that doing so ultimately cost him his job.
“Essig could not be fired without due process,” the lawsuit says. “Accordingly, defendants Caban and Maddrey, with the implied and tacit approval of Defendant Mayor [Eric] Adams, contrived a plan to force Essig to resign from his position.”
In addition to Caban, Maddrey and Adams, the suit also targets the NYPD. It was one of four lawsuits filed Tuesday by the same lawyer, each with a separate former senior NYPD commander as the plaintiff. The suits accuse NYPD top brass of running a department beset by corruption, illegal conduct and retaliation.
Adams’ press secretary, Kayla Mamelak, pointed to the city’s decreasing crime rates in a statement issued after the lawsuits were filed.
“The Adams administration holds all city employees — including leadership at the NYPD — to the highest standards, and our work at the department speaks for itself,” Mamelak said.
“We will review the lawsuits,” she added.
Lawyers for Caban, Russell Capone and Rebekah Donaleski, denied the allegations, saying in a statement that they had “no merit … including the unsupported and reckless suggestion that former Commissioner Caban accepted anything of value in connection with promotions.”
Maddrey’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit did not say how Essig knew about the alleged quid pro quo. It did say, though, that Essig and other members of his office, which oversees the promotion process for the detective bureau, first detected signs of improper transfers and promotions in early 2023.
Just two months earlier, Maddrey had been promoted to chief of department, the NYPD’s highest uniformed position. He was a “longtime friend and crony of Mayor Adams,” the suit says.
Essig and his colleagues began to notice that “unqualified or inexperienced detective investigators” were being placed into the elite Criminal Task Force Division “despite being rejected as unqualified or inexperienced,” the suit says.
Maddrey “wanted to bypass the official transfers and put his friends and cronies on the [Criminal Task Force Division],” according to the lawsuit.
Concerned about the transfers to that unit and others, Essig went to discuss the matter with Caban, who was then the first deputy police commissioner, the suit says.
“We can’t be doing this,” Essig told Caban, according to the suit.
Caban replied, “Do you have a problem with this?” the suit says.
Essig felt he could not directly challenge Caban because Caban was his superior, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says Caban and Maddrey also selected “friends and cronies” for discretionary promotions, bypassing the official process.
“Upon information and belief, this is because Caban was selling promotions in exchange for up to $15,000,” the suit says, without elaborating.
Essig claims in the suit that federal investigators are looking into the allegations. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.
Essig continued to voice his concerns to Maddrey and Caban about the “unvetted transfers and promotions.” He was especially alarmed, the suit says, after he noticed that an unusually high number of unvetted detectives were bring transferred into the Special Victims Unit, which investigates sex crimes and is highly scrutinized by advocates and outside groups.
The suit says Maddrey and Caban “eventually tired of Essig questioning their unusual and non-customary promotion and transfer practices and decided to replace Essig.”
In August 2023, the suit says, Caban offered Essig two options: resign or accept a demotion that would involve a salary cut of $40,000-$50,000.
Essig, a 40-year veteran, intended to serve until this February, the suit says. Faced with those options, he retired instead.
Caban, who was promoted to commissioner in July 2023, resigned last September after his phone was seized as part of a federal probe into the department’s nightclub enforcement. NBC News reported at the time that the investigation was looking into whether his brother had been paid by bars and clubs in Midtown Manhattan and Queens to act as a police liaison, and if those clubs were then afforded special treatment by local precincts.
Caban and his brother have denied any wrongdoing.
Maddrey resigned last December amid allegations that he had demanded sex from a subordinate. Maddrey has denied the allegations.
