Adams’ favorite cops have major women problems
At least one new lawsuit spotlights a nasty boys-club vibe among the cops in Eric Adams’ tight inner circle. There’s the suit with a former civilian NYPD employee filed under the Adult Survivors Act, accusing him in graphic detail of sexually assaulting her when she asked for his help in getting promoted in 1993, when he was a police sergeant. Adams, who city lawyers are defending, says “this did not happen” and “I don’t recall ever meeting this person.”
And the suit Graham Rayman scooped in The News, where now retired Sgt. Roxanne Ludemann alleges her career was derailed after she rejected the unwanted advances of retired NYPD Deputy Inspector Tim Pearson.
Pearson, who Adams has tasked with overseeing and controlling the costs of the city’s migrant crisis, is nominally a civilian.
But while he’s drawing a 125K police pension along with his 250K salary from the city’s quasi-public Economic Development Corp., he still acts like a cop. He flashes a badge, barks orders and expects people, including officers, to respect his authority as he’s reportedly controlled all promotions inside the department.
My colleague at The City, Gwynne Hogan, reported last year that he got physical with a female security guard at a migrant shelter who wasn’t quick enough to let him inside, and then had two guards arrested before the DA dropped those ridiculous charges.
Now, according to Ludemann’s suit, Pearson is running Adams’ shadowy new Mayor’s Office of Municipal Services Assessment, based out of a city workplace in Queens and memorably described by Politico’s Joe Anuta as “a squad of NYPD and other staffers who act as governmental private eyes monitoring city agencies.”
While Pearson wasn’t initially running the office, it’s been his “hang out” since it opened according to the suit, which alleges he’s come on to numerous women working there to the point where NYPD bosses took steps to keep him from being alone with them and internally reported their concerns.
Ludemann’s suit claims she turned down Pearson’s persistent offers to become his private driver, a role she was over-qualified for and that’s “a common way women are sexually harassed in the NYPD” by getting male supervisors “one on one access to the female officer.”
After that, it says, she was knocked off of a promotions list, reassigned and placed on shifts that conflicted with her child care obligations. When she complained, an Internal Affairs probe was allegedly weaponized against her.
The suit also names Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks and NYPD Chief of Department Jeff Maddrey as defendants.
Banks abruptly resigned from the NYPD in 2014 after years of letting two guys — who later went to prison for bribing then-Mayor Bill de Blasio with campaign cash and top cops with hookers — hang out and smoke cigars inside his office at One Police Plaza, when they weren’t taking him out to fancy dinners or flying him around the world.
(Banks wrote in the Daily News Op-Ed where he bizarrely announced his own appointment as deputy mayor — published the day after he fired the head of Internal Affairs who’d investigated him before his resignation — that he regretted the association but hadn’t broken any laws or boundaries.)
As to Maddrey, the Adams team made him the department’s top uniformed officer five years after he was docked vacation days for waving off cops responding to a 911 call while he was parked in a car with a former officer who said he’d been beating her — and that she’d been in a long-term affair with him — until she pulled a gun, and then beat her harder after convincing her to put it down: “He choked me up. He threw me from side to side like I was a rag doll.”
Candidate Adams vowed to appoint a woman as his police commissioner, only for his pick to resign after just 18 months of being undermined by these guys — culminating in the mayor personally asking her not to discipline Maddrey, this time for voiding the arrest of an ex-cop who pulled a gun on kids he was chasing.
In the lawsuit alleging a younger Adams acted like “a predator” disguised as a guardian, a footnote points to an interview he gave for a history of the Guardians, the NYPD Black fraternal organization he was a prominent member of in the early 1990s.
He recalled a piece of wisdom passed down by the group’s elders: “You can’t be strong and wrong. If you’re going to speak out, if you’re going to stand up, then you have to understand that you’re going to be under scrutiny all the time.”
Siegel (harrysiegel@gmail.com) is an editor at The City and a columnist for the Daily News.
Manhattan: The logic of Alan Dershowitz and Andrew Stein’s approval of the way Israel is conducting the war in Gaza hinges on one line in their half-page essay (“Hamas turns Gaza’s hospitals into ‘Hamaspitals,’ ” op-ed, March 21). They say Israel is “pursuing its legitimate goals by legitimate means.” Well, I and much of the world dispute that. Killing every single, solitary Hamas fighter who ever lived, no matter where they are and no matter how many civilians get in the way, is not legitimate. Leveling three-quarters of the buildings in Gaza and causing death to women and children is not legitimate. Destroying hospitals and schools and causing famine and disease is not legitimate. Displacing more than 1.5 million people from their homes and forcing them to live on the streets in tents is not legitimate. Shutting off water, electricity and sewage treatment is not legitimate. Inhibiting the movement of humanitarian aid is not legitimate.
Destroying Hamas’ capability of ever attacking Israel again like it did on Oct. 7 is legitimate, and that goal was achieved months ago. How will Hamas ever repeat such an attack on Israel? Will they gather in the open in flattened former neighborhoods, march undetected to Israel and attack while Benjamin Netanyahu’s IDF is on another 14-hour vacation?
Hamas is no longer a threat to Israel. If they are, please detail how and under what circumstances they can attack Israel again. If you can not, then you agree that Israel has already won and it is time to stop.
Steven Davies
Field report
Forest Hills: Do Israel’s cheerleaders in America bother following Israeli media before dutifully spouting government propaganda? Bibi Netanyahu claims the IDF must invade Rafah to “finish” Hamas. Then why did the chief officer of the Israeli special forces Commando Brigade, Omer Cohen, say this recently after pulling out of the Hamad Town neighborhood in Khan Younis, which Israeli airstrikes destroyed back in early December: “We experienced combat here in Hamad Town the likes of which we have not seen anywhere else in Gaza — advanced combat units with clear command structure.” That means Bibi’s onslaught has failed to cripple Hamas, as many have warned throughout this savagery. There is no military solution to a militant movement that exists solely in response to generations of militaristic oppression. It also means Bibi’s aim is to “finish” Gaza, as Rafah is the last area not largely obliterated. This is a genocide to destroy Gaza, not Hamas. Abe Greene
Evil festers
Stoughton, Mass.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” — MLK. Think hard, my fellow Americans.
Don Schwarz
Foreign affairs
Brooklyn: As a resident of Brooklyn, I have voted for Chuck Schumer in every election since 1974, when he ran for the New York State Assembly. I like him for the most part and think he is doing a great job representing New Yorkers. In all the many times I have voted for Chuck, I have never once consulted with an Israeli on whether to vote for him or not. The reason is that Israelis have their own politics and we have ours. Sorry, Chuck — butt out of their elections.
Steve Miller
Military-grade
Yonkers: Alleged illegal sales by Amazon and others of radio signal jamming devices that can “confuse” drones was reported in the March 21 edition (“FCC eyes Amazon for allegedly selling illegal electronic devices“). As existence of these devices is common knowledge, why aren’t they being used by the U.S., Israeli and Ukrainian militaries to destroy drones in flight or, even better, redirect them back to their launch points? I’m sure we have the ability to defeat any anti-jamming tech that may be employed by those using drones as attack weapons. Mark Bloom
Eliminating position
Danbury, Conn.: Shohei Ohtani has been playing Major League Baseball in the United States for seven seasons and has now begun his eighth with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He has signed contracts nearing $1 billion in compensation. One might think that in all that time, he would have learned to speak English so that it wouldn’t be necessary to pay a translator who ended up ripping him off for $4.5 million so the translator could gamble on other major league sports — and lose. Michael Eddy
Pro-family
Union, N.J.: It’s been nearly two months since the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan expansion of the Child Tax Credit and sent it to the Senate. Estimates are that this bill will benefit 16 million children in families with low incomes, including 5.8 million kids under the age of 6. You would think that in an election year, Congress would be eager to pass a tax cut for families (and small businesses). But a few senators are blocking it for political gain. Families should not have to wait months for Congress to pass something that is popular and necessary. It is time for senators to show us their hands. If the bill passes, families win. If it fails, senators can explain to voters why they chose to keep children in poverty. Vote yes on the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act. Eugene Gorrin
Talking crap
Orangeburg, N.Y.: To all my fellow veterans: Are you listening to the crap that that pompous, spoiled and cowardly “Bone Spurs” is spewing? I guess now that he has secured the GOP nomination, Trump will soon announce his running mate — George Santos. After all, they share the same ethics. Al Hagan
Dishonorable discharge
Brick, N.J.: To all Trump-loving vets: He called veterans suckers and losers. On Okinawa alone, 250 6×6 trucks were loaded with fallen soldiers and Marines (12,000). They were stacked like wood, ages 17 and up — many their mother’s only son. I’m a 93-year-old Korean War vet. If you vote for this pull-their-pantsdown wig-of-the-day, you should be ashamed. Warren B. Lawrence
Pucker up
Bronx: To Voicer Bob Pascarella: When you get tired of kissing Donald Trump’s behind, you can come and kiss mine! Signed, a Black and proud Korea veteran.
Robert Adams
Stated agenda
Hamilton Square, N.J.: To Voicer Nancy Brenner: You’re correct. Open your ears and listen. Trump also didn’t say he’d be a dictator “only” on Day 1. When someone shows you who they are, believe them. We should believe Trump will only be a one-day dictator? Then I guess we should believe he will gut our 250-year-old Constitution, use the military against residents of the country and take revenge against any and all perceived enemies. His oft-made statement is if you’re not with him, you’re against him. That’s a full-time dictator.
Eileen Johnson
Not great
Brooklyn: To Beyoncé: Too much, too little, too late. Take a page out of Taylor Swift’s book.
R. Vargas
The banner yet waves
Brooklyn: This Army veteran would like to thank the person who returned my flag. It was blown away by the high wind on St. Patrick’s Day. My wife Marlene spent an hour searching for it. You did some job finding out it was mine. John D. Blank
More alike than not
Whitestone: Some people think they have nothing in common with others. Some are overweight, some are too thin. Some are smiling all the time, some are serious 24/7. Some are left-handed and some are right. But remember this: We all drive with our right foot, so we do all have something in common. Be patient with others. Sally DeFelice
Basic needs
Brooklyn: Hunger is a detrimental issue for many college students, 40% of whom are food insecure. The crisis continues as inflation increases. Rent, groceries and cost of living are at an all-time high. Students are struggling to put food on the table, and living in these conditions can make it difficult to ask for help. For many, food insecurity comes with shame and embarrassment. The Hunger-Free Campus Act addresses food insecurity in private and public institutions. It would provide resources, such as grants to target food insecurity, and assist with housing displacement support. In New York, this act has just been introduced. We need to urge Assembly members to promote this law for the sake of our students — in other words, for the sake of our future. We can not expect students to excel in academics if they cannot afford basic human needs. Laura Yusupova