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The controversial NYC President Sergeants Benevolent Association resigned his post Monday night, the union’s executive board said in a message to members, after his home and Manhattan headquarters were raided by the FBI in connection with a federally supervised criminal investigation. prosecutors
“This morning, as you are no doubt aware, agents from the FBI and the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York executed a search warrant at the headquarters of the Sergeants Benevolent Association and at the residence. of President Ed Mullins, ”he added. reading of the message of the board of directors of the ASB to the members. “The nature and scope of this criminal investigation have not yet been determined. However, it is clear that President Mullins is apparently the target of the federal investigation.
“Given the gravity of this matter and the uncertainty of its outcome, the ASB Board of Directors has called for President Mullins to resign as President of the ASB. Tonight, President Mullins has agreed to resign as president of the ASB, “he added. the message continued.
The FBI confirmed that the office executed the search warrant at the police union offices, as well as Mullins’ home in Port Washington. FBI spokesman Martin Feely said the officers were “carrying out law enforcement action as part of an ongoing investigation.”
Officers were seen transporting boxes out of union headquarters in Manhattan and loading them into a pickup truck. Mullins returned home Monday afternoon and left shortly after.
However, it was not immediately clear who or what prosecutors and the FBI are investigating. In the letter to members, the SBA said it would cooperate with the investigation.
“Like all of us, Ed Mullins is entitled to the presumption of innocence, and we ask that you stay your judgment until all the facts have been established,” the letter read. “However, the day-to-day operations and important affairs of the SBA cannot be distracted by the existence of this investigation.”
The SBA represents 13,000 current and former NYPD members, according to its website, and controls a $ 264 million retirement fund. it describes itself as the fifth largest police union in America. A union lawyer did not immediately respond to a call for comment.
Mullins is a controversial figure who has publicly fought with Mayor Bill de Blasio and with the leadership of the NYPD. De Blasio confirmed the raid to the SBA office on Tuesday, but said he did not have details.
“I think he’s been a divisive voice,” de Blasio said of Mullins. “But it doesn’t make me feel anything in this situation because I don’t know what’s going on. All I hear is an FBI raid. I don’t know the details, I don’t know who it is for. I really want to hear the details before I comment further.
Last month, Mullins faced an internal NYPD lawsuit on various administrative charges, including an episode where he tweeted an arrest dossier for the mayor’s daughter. The department’s trial began last month but was postponed indefinitely after one of its lawyers suffered a medical emergency.
Mullins’ attorney denies violating departmental guidelines, arguing that arrest documents containing Chiara de Blasio’s personal identifying information, such as her date of birth and address, had previously been posted online.
Mullins is also suing the department, saying they were trying to muzzle him by grilling him and recommending disciplinary action for his online missives, which included allegations that officers were at war with city leaders.
Mullins, a police officer since 1982, became a sergeant, higher than detective but lower than captain and lieutenant, in 1993 and was elected president of the sergeants’ union in 2002. Led by Mullins , the union fought for better pay – with contracts resulting in 40% wage increases – and took a leading position in the anti-reform movement.
Despite being a full-time union leader, city law allowed Mullins to retain his position as a sergeant and collect union and police department wages. Last year, Mullins earned more than $ 220,000 between the two, according to public records: $ 88,757 from the union and $ 133,195 from the NYPD.
The NYPD referred questions about Mullins to the FBI.
Besides Mullins’ periodic appearances on cable networks like Fox News and Newsmax – including one in which he was photographed in front of a QAnon mug – the union’s most powerful megaphone is perhaps its 45,000-follower Twitter account, which Mullins manages itself, often to fire effect.
In 2018, amid a series of incidents in which police officers were sprayed with water, Mullins suggested it was time for then-commissioner James O’Neill and department head Terence Monahan to “consider another profession” and tweeted that “O’KNEEL has to go!”
O’Neill countered that Mullins was “a bit of a keyboard gangster” who rarely showed up for department duties.
Last year Mullins came under fire for tweets calling the city’s former health commissioner Dr Oxiris Barbot “b — h” and U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres as “w — e first class “.
Mullins was upset at reports that Barbot had refused to give face masks to police at the start of the pandemic and angry at Torres’ calls for an investigation into a possible slowdown in police work in September 2020.
Torres, who is gay, denounced Mullins’ tweet as homophobic.
On Tuesday, Torres referred to this tweet when reacting to the news of the raid, writing: FBI First Class Raid.
In 2019, it wasn’t the tweets that got Mullins in trouble, but rather comments he made in a radio interview suggesting that Tessa Majors, a student killed at Barnard College, had gone to the park where she had been killed to buy marijuana. Police then arrested three teenagers, claiming she was stabbed in an attempted robbery.
Majors ‘family called Mullins’ remarks on the radio show “deeply inappropriate” blaming the victim and urged him “not to engage in such irresponsible public speculation.”
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