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NYC Crime

Internal NYPD documents shed new light on how top chief

Jeffrey Maddrey kept his job after fracas with woman
By Thomas Tracy and Graham Rayman
New York Daily News • May 07, 2023 at 8:00 pm

Top New York uniformed cop Jeffrey Maddrey — currently facing charges he abused his office
by intervening in the investigation of a friend — could have lost his career in 2017 over charges
he lied about an incident in which a retired officer waved a gun at him during an altercation in a
Queens park.

Documents seen by the Daily News show that Maddrey kept his job even though NYPD internal
affairs investigators believed he “wrongfully impeded an official Department investigation by
providing inaccurate or otherwise misleading statements.”

The documents provide new insight into how strongly NYPD investigators believed that
Maddrey lied to them and raise more questions about what cops and department observers call
“white shirt immunity” — the ability of high-ranking officers to evade scrutiny and punishment
for their misbehavior.

Internal affairs probers wrote in reports that the charges Maddrey lied were “substantiated.”
But that part of their case was dropped when Maddrey agreed to plead guilty to lesser
departmental charges of engaging in an off-duty physical altercation.

Because of the plea agreement, no final determination was made of whether Maddrey lied or
not.

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Immanuel Quickley latest
NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey is pictured during a press conference in Queens on Feb. 28, 2023. (Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New Knick to experience ankle
York Daily News) injury during Game 3 loss to
Heat
Maddrey’s lawyer said the lying charges were disposed of because NYPD officials became 1h

convinced they weren’t true. “We proved that he wasn’t untruthful and was in fact truthful, so
NYC Crime
the charges were withdrawn,” said the lawyer, Lambros Lambrou.
Internal NYPD documents
shed new light on how top
But others experienced in the NYPD’s disciplinary system are convinced Maddrey’s high rank chief Jeffrey Maddrey kept
his job after fracas with
saved his career despite committing an offense the Police Department’s Patrol Guide says will
woman
bring cops automatic dismissal “absent exceptional circumstances.” 1h

“The ‘exceptional circumstances’ are, he’s a chief. There’s no other way to look at this,” said Rae More Sports
Downes Koshetz, a lawyer and former NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Trials, a job in which Mage wins star-crossed
Kentucky Derby amid 7th
she oversaw the department’s handling of police misconduct cases. death
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“Certainly, it was a sticky wicket,” Koshetz said of Maddrey’s situation in 2017. “But they just
massaged it as much as they could to keep him on the job.”

Following his plea, Maddrey was docked 45 vacation days. His career continued. In 2022,
Maddrey became the NYPD’s top uniformed officer, two ranks below Police Commissioner
Keechant Sewell. He is a longtime police commander with close ties to Mayor Adams, himself a
former cop.

At the time of the career-endangering 2017 proceedings, Maddrey was the highly-regarded
chief of Brooklyn North, a command that oversees 10 precincts and thousands of cops.

NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey stands with NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell during a press conference at NYPD police
headquarters Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Willilams/for New York Daily News)

His troubles began during a rendezvous at 11:30 p.m. on Dec. 7, 2015 with retired Officer
Tabatha Foster at Tudor Park in Ozone Park, Queens, case records show. Maddrey and Foster
conducted a tumultuous years-long affair, according to court records.

The pair squabbled and then physically struggled, and Foster pulled her gun on Maddrey
during the confrontation, which was reported by a witness in the park who called 911, NYPD
investigation records say.

Foster said she pulled the gun because Maddrey was assaulting her , and that the struggle left
her arm bleeding and her fingernails hurt. She made those statements in depositions in her
lawsuit accusing the NYPD of creating a hostile work environment.

In his own deposition in Foster’s civil suit, Maddrey said he never saw Foster aim a gun at him
— but that he became afraid when she reached into a handbag where he knew she kept it. “I
started yelling to Tabatha, ‘Please don’t you have no gun out pointed at me, don’t you point no
gun at me,’” Maddrey testified.

Two 106th Precinct cops arrived at the scene. “Everything is good,” Maddrey told them, the
records show.

About six months after the altercation — in May 2016 — Internal Affairs Bureau investigators
began looking into the matter, prodded by an anonymous letter.

Police investigators checked 911 records, and found that the caller in Tudor Park “reported that
a female Black pulled a gun and pointed it at a male black,” NYPD records show. The internal
affairs probers determined that after Foster pulled her gun, Maddrey took it from her and
disassembled it.

But an NYPD document said Maddrey “insisted that the interaction in the park was ‘just having
fun’ and not confrontational.”

Retired NYPD Officer Tabatha Foster is pictured in Brooklyn, on May 25, 2016. (Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News)

The internal affairs investigators established that Maddrey’s affair with Foster began in 2009,
an NYPD summary of the case shows.

The documents say Maddrey in separate interviews gave the investigators conflicting
information about when the relationship ended.

In an investigative interview on May 5, 2016, Maddrey said his relationship with Foster ended
in 2013, NYPD documents say. But when he was interviewed again on Feb. 1, 2017, Maddrey
admitted his relationship with Foster continued beyond 2013 to 2016, the documents state.

NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey is pictured in Queens on Friday, April 14, 2023. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily
News)

Internal Affairs investigators settled on five substantiated charges against Maddrey: Engaging
in an off-duty physical altercation, failing to call a supervisor to the scene of that altercation,
and “wrongfully impeding” a department investigation — plus two substantiated charges of
making false statements in official interviews.

One of the false statement charges was about the inconsistencies in the Maddrey’s story about
when his relationship with Foster ended.

The other false statement charge said Maddrey falsely claimed that during their December 2015
confrontation in Tudor Park that he and Foster didn’t physically struggle, and that he “falsely
stated that ... Foster did not point a gun at him.”

Retired NYPD Officer Tabatha Foster is pictured in Brooklyn, on May 25, 2016. (Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News)

On April 27, 2017, two memos outlining the five charges were sent to then First Deputy
Commissioner Benjamin Tucker, the second highest official in the NYPD. One memo to Tucker
was from Assistant Chief Brian O’Neill, the executive officer of Internal Affairs. The second was
from Captain Bienvenido Martinez, the commanding officer of IAB’s Special Investigations
Unit.

Both men recommended to Tucker that Maddrey face all five charges.

But the two false statement charges vanished from the case, and Maddrey pleaded guilty
officially to the three lesser charges. Tucker and then-Police Commissioner James O’Neill
signed off on the 45-vacation day penalty on May 31, 2017, records show.

Deputy Police Commissioner Benjamin Tucker speaks during a press conference outside United Nations headquarters, Thursday, Dec. 2,
2021, in New York. (John Minchillo/AP)

What happened to make the false statement allegations disappear is unclear, but sources said
there were high-level discussions between top brass, Kevin Richardson, then the head of the
Department Advocate’s Office, and Maddrey’s lawyer, Lambros Lambrou.

Lambrou said the false statement charges were removed because Maddrey did not lie about the
year his relationship with Foster ended — even though the IAB probers found Maddrey himself
gave contradictory statements about the situation.

Lambrou said there are also doubts about whether the altercation in the Queens park was
physical and Foster wielded a gun.

“There were two interviews at issue. Internal Affairs believed what certain people said, and we
quickly pointed out who was not telling the truth,” Lambrou said.

“They agreed to remove the charges that, though they were deemed substantiated, would not
hold up in the trial room.”

A story in The News in March 14, 2018 reported based on anonymous sources that Richardson
had a key role in eliminating the false statement charges . Efforts to reach Richardson for this
story were not successful.

Police officers are warned in the department’s Patrol Guide that making a false statement is a
serious issue.

“Intentionally making a false official statement regarding a material matter will result in
dismissal from the department, absent exceptional circumstances,” says Patrol Guide rule 203-
8. “Exceptional circumstances will be determined by the police commissioner on a case by
case basis.”

Koshetz, the former trials deputy commissioner, said “exceptional circumstances” should be
applied very rarely. “If someone has had a remarkable career and is dying of cancer, that would
be an exceptional circumstance,” she said.

Foster’s suit against the city and Maddrey over her treatment while she was on the police force
is still pending. Her first case in federal court was dismissed. She refiled the case in state court
in 2019 with a new lawyer. Maddrey filed a counterclaim that is being handled as part of
Foster’s lawsuit.

Foster’s current lawyer, Matthew Blit, did not reply to requests for comment.

Sewell, the police commissioner, faces a decision on Maddrey’s current case, in which the
Civilian Complaint Review Board has substantiated a charge that in November 2021 he
intervened in the arrest of a friend and former cop who chased three teens with a gun in
Brooklyn . Under CCRB guidelines, “substantiated” means there is “sufficient credible evidence”
that Maddrey “committed the alleged act without legal justification.”

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A Legal Aid Society study found Sewell reduced, set aside or ignored hundreds of police
misconduct penalties recommended by the CCRB. Of 15 captains and above whose CCRB cases
were decided, Sewell departed to lesser charges in 11 of them, a source familiar with the
disciplinary cases said.

The NYPD also holds departmental trials in disciplinary cases without CCRB involvement. In
such cases, Sewell has adopted the recommendations of the trial judge in the all five officers
ranked as captains and above who have faced departmental trials since she became
commissioner in January 2022.

NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey is pictured behind Commissioner Keechant Sewell in Times Square on Dec. 30. (Barry
Willilams/for New York Daily News)

Lawyer Eric Sanders, who previously represented Foster, said “white-shirt immunity” — the
protection of captains and above from disciplinary charges — is alive and well in the NYPD.

“I don’t have anything personal against him (Maddrey), but I’ve said from the beginning that
your executive staff has to be professional and refrain from getting involved with their
subordinates,” Sanders said.

“He and other people in the department have either engaged or continue to engage in this
conduct and there is no redress for the people who are taken advantage of.”

“It still goes on with other executives and other managers in the department and it’s going on
all the time.”

With Bill Sanderson

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