ULTIMATE SHIELD: FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES
Chief in park fight waves off officers charges then are tossed by nyPd big
ASSISTANT CHIEF Jeffrey Maddrey was saved by the white shirt on his back.
In 2015, the burly leader of the NYPD’s Patrol Borough Brooklyn North allegedly attacked a woman rumored to be his lover — who is also a former cop — in a Queens park.
The woman, Tabatha Foster, pulled her gun during the fight, allegedly to fend Maddrey off — and panicked parkgoers called 911.
As the NYPD arrived on the scene, Maddrey pulled rank and waved the cops off. No report of the incident was ever filed.
The NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau questioned Maddrey about the incident in May 2016 — but the popular chief gave it misleading statements that blocked the investigation, sources with knowledge of the case told the Daily News.
Any rank-and-file cop likely would have been fired for misleading Internal Affairs, according to sources.
But Maddrey was covered with what critics say is the best protection the NYPD can offer: a white shirt that indicates a high rank in the department.
Instead of discipline, Maddrey received the white-glove treatment from the NYPD’s Department Advocate’s Office, the unit responsible for prosecuting crooked cops, sources said.
The office’s head, Deputy Commissioner Kevin Richardson, threw out the most serious charges against Maddrey — that he gave inaccurate and misleading statements to Internal Affairs and impeded a department investigation.
Richardson tossed the charges after a closed-door meeting in April 2017 with Maddrey’s attorney Lambros Lambrou — allegedly over the objections of his staff, sources said.
“It’s highly unusual for Richardson to meet alone with a cop’s attorney,” one source said.
When reached last Wednesday, Lambrou said he wasn’t at liberty to confirm that he had a private meeting with Richardson in 2017.
Two days later, Lambrou reached out to tell The News he never had a closed-door meeting with Richardson.
He also said any discussions about Maddrey’s charges between him and Richardson were done in the presence of a high-ranking member of the Captains Endowment Association. The association also represents department chiefs.
Lambrou said Maddrey was never facing any charges that could have led to his dismissal, and that it was appropriate for the head of the Department Advocate’s Office to oversee the prosecution of a two-star chief.
“(Richardson) is the highest-ranking member of the Department’s Advocate’s Office and these were allegations against a Based on those letters, the DOI chief,” Lambrou said. “It’s launched a probe into Richardson’s completely normal for him to take handling of the case, sources said. charge of the case and figure out “(Richardson’s) executive staff what cannot be sustained or proven.” advised him against this coverup and told him his actions constituted
Once the most potentially damaging serious misconduct and were potentially charges against him were criminal,” said one of the letters wiped away, Maddrey was able to sent to the DOI and shared keep his job — and in the immediate with The News. aftermath, it seemed he would face A DOI spokeswoman confirmed no repercussions. that her office received the letters,
But then a series of mysterious but wouldn’t say if it was investigating and anonymous letters surfaced. Richardson.
Sent to the city’s watchdog “We are aware of the matter and enforcement agency — the decline further comment,” the Department of Investigation — the spokeswoman said. letters detailed the alleged misconduct Several other city agencies also by Maddrey, and his apparently received the letters, along with a police cozy relationship with Richardson. union official, who forwarded them to the Internal Affairs Bureau, sources said.
Now the DOI wants to know why Richardson met with Maddrey’s attorney and intervened on his behalf — although NYPD critics claim the watchdog agency knows exactly what happened.
“If you have a white shirt — particularly if you’re a captain and above — you’re treated differently in the department,” said Eric Sanders, a retired cop-turned-attorney who is representing Tabatha Foster, 42.
Foster has filed a federal lawsuit against the city, the NYPD and Maddrey, 47, alleging that the assistant chief broke department policy by having a relationship with her, his subordinate, among other claims.
“They can get away with murder,” Sanders said. “They can rob and steal and rarely, if at all, they are held accountable.”
Maddrey, a 27-year veteran of the department, ultimately admitted to a series of charges in a negotiated settlement, such as wrongfully engaging in a physical altercation and failure to inform a patrol supervisor, and he was docked 45 vacation days, sources said.
It turned out to be a serious hit as far as NYPD discipline goes, but it could have been much worse, according to sources.
“He could have been fired if he was charged with making false and misleading statements,” one source said.
The NYPD Patrol Guide prohibits intentionally making a false statements and says such acts “will be subject to disciplinary action up to and including dismissal.”
Police Commissioner James O’Neill signed off on Maddrey’s docked pay deal last spring.
Roughly 10 months after Maddrey’s stay of execution, O’Neill took a tough stance on cops who lie to investigators and in court.
“The New York City Police Department recognizes that the results of willful, false testimony can not only change the consequences of an individual case, they undermine the public’s trust in its police,” O’Neill said in an Op-Ed that appeared in The News on March 4.
“The NYPD and all the people we serve expect the highest levels of integrity and truthfulness from our
public servants. And New Yorkers deserve nothing less."
Now the letters sent to the DOI and others are being used by Sanders in a motion to depose O’Neill and Richardson as part of the civil suit.
Sanders also wants to speak to David Green, an attorney at the Department Advocate’s Office, who, according to sources, was prosecuting the Maddrey case and disagreed with Richardson’s decision to kill the most serious charges.
Internal Affairs had initially learned about Maddrey’s relationship with Foster — and their Dec. 7, 2015, fight in Ozone Park’s Tudor Park — after someone tipped them to Foster’s Facebook posts in May 2016, which recounted their alleged affair.
The Internal Affairs investigation heated up later that month when Foster filed the $100 million lawsuit against Maddrey and the city, claiming she and the chief had hooked up for years, getting busy in stationhouses and his police car.
In her lawsuit, Foster claims she pulled a gun on Maddrey in Tudor Park to stop him from beating her.
Her lawsuit prompted Internal Affairs and the Queens district attorney to take a look at possible criminal charges. The Queens DA looked into the case — but by November 2016 had dropped it due to lack of evidence.
That left the case to Internal Affairs, which investigated and substantiated several of the allegations against Maddrey — but the top ones were dropped after Internal Affairs sent the case to the Department Advocate’s Office, sources said.
The charges against Maddrey arrived at the Department Advocate’s Office on a Friday in April 2017, sources recall.
Richardson met almost immediately with Maddrey’s lawyer — and on the following Monday, Richardson announced his office wouldn’t prosecute Maddrey on the most serious charges, according to sources.
Richardson’s decision caused an uproar in the office, with department attorney Green refusing to sign off on the case until a footnote was put into the record that the more serious charges had been removed, sources said.
The NYPD wouldn’t allow Richardson to be interviewed by The News, citing Foster’s pending lawsuit.
Maddrey, a married father of three daughters who is respected for his approach to neighborhood policing, has since filed a $2 million countersuit against Foster, claiming their “relationship” is all in her head and that she threatened to kill him, his wife and children, and “shoot up a party” the chief planned to attend without her.
Texts between Maddrey and Foster acquired by the Daily News in 2016 in which Foster threatens to harm the chief appear to back Maddrey’s claim.
Captains Endowment Association President Roy Richter blasted critics of “white-shirt” immunity, claiming that bosses aren’t shielded from discipline because of their rank.
“Unfortunately ‘white shirts’ in whole get treated much more harshly when they are subject to discipline,” Richter said.