Just over a week after taking charge of the nation’s largest police department, interim New York City Police Commissioner Tom Donlon confirmed Saturday that federal agents served search warrants on multiple homes belonging to him.
In a statement obtained by CBS News, Donlon said that “federal authorities” on Friday “executed search warrants at my residences.”
Donlon alleged that the agents “took materials that came into my possession approximately 20 years ago and are unrelated to my work with the New York City Police Department.”
He added that the NYPD would “not be commenting” as this was “not a department matter.”
Donlon’s predecessor, Edward Caban, resigned on Sept. 12, about one week after it emerged that Caban’s phone was seized as part of a federal investigation that touched several members of New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ inner circle.
Caban, who had served as commissioner of the NYPD about 15 months, said in an email to staff at the time that he made the decision to resign after the “news around recent developments” had “created a distraction for our department.”
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. He helped lead the investigation into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and investigated the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings and USS Cole bombing.
Caban’s resignation marked 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.
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