Police (file image)
Police Commissioner, Edward Caban, has resigned his appointment following the seizure of his phone by a federal team investigatimg several members of Mayor Eric Adams’ inner circle.
New York City Police Commissioner Edward Caban resigned Thursday, one week after it emerged that his phone was seized as part of a federal investigation that touched several members of Mayor Eric Adams’ inner circle.
New York City Police Commissioner, who resigned his appointment on Thursday, had been in charge of the nation’s largest police department for about 15 months.
He said in an email to staff that he made the decision to resign after the “news around recent developments” had “created a distraction for our department.”
“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,” he added in the email obtained by The Associated Press.
At a news conference Thursday, Adams praised Caban for “making our city safer” and said he had named Tom Donlon, a retired FBI official, as the interim police commissioner.
Donlon previously served as the chief of the FBI’s National Threat Center and once led the Office of Homeland Security in New York, before starting his own security firm in 2020.
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He helped lead the investigation into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and investigated the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings and USS Cole bombing.
Donlon said in a statement he was “honored and humbled” to head “the greatest law enforcement agency in the world,” and that his priorities would include removing illegal guns from the community.
Caban’s resignation marks the first high-level departure from the Adams administration since federal investigators seized phones Sept. 4 from several members of the mayor’s inner circle, including two deputy mayors, the schools chancellor, and one of Adams’ top advisers.
The subject of the investigation, which is being led by U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan, remains unclear, as does whether federal authorities were seeking information linked to one investigation or several.
Caban’s lawyers, Russell Capone and Rebekah Donaleski, said in a statement Thursday they had been told 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.”
The Justice Department defines a target of an investigation as someone whom prosecutors or a grand jury have gathered substantial evidence against that links the person to a crime.
That’s in contrast to a subject, which is someone whose conduct is merely within the scope of the investigation.
But those definitions are notoriously fluid and a person not seen as a technical target one day can become a target the next as new information develops.
Federal authorities are also investigating Caban’s twin brother, James Caban, a former NYPD sergeant who runs a nightclub security business, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The person could not publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
James Caban “unequivocally denies any wrongdoing,” his lawyer, Sean Hecker, said in a statement.
“His work – as a consultant and acting as a liaison between the Department and a private company – is perfectly legal, especially given his previous career as a NYPD officer,” Hecker continued.
James Caban was fired by the NYPD in 2001 after he was heard on a recording illegally detaining a cab driver whom he accused of stealing $100 and threatening to seize his vehicle.
Caban, 57, was the first Latino to lead the 179-year-old NYPD.
He started as a patrol officer in 1991 in the Bronx, where he grew up, and worked in precincts across the city as he was promoted.
His father, retired Detective Juan Caban, had served with Adams, a former police captain, when they were both on the city’s transit police force.
Three of Caban’s brothers were also police officers.
.Culled from AP
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