Former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s NYPD chief to be charged in cover-up case

NEW YORK — The former head of former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s security detail, an NYPD official, is expected to be indicted Wednesday on obstruction-related charges stemming from allegations that he helped cover up an investigation into the mayor’s presidential campaign.

New York City investigators in 2021 concluded that de Blasio misused his NYPD detail for personal and political gain, and that Inspector Howard Redmond actively obstructed a further investigation of that detail. The mayor received fines from the Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB), fines that he is currently challenging in civil court.

In the Department of Investigation report, Redmond was accused of having “…deliberately sought to destroy official communications that he knew were being sought in a DOI investigation and then misled the NYPD’s own attorneys about his compliance with the request for records.

The two sources familiar with the matter say Redmond could appear at 100 Center Street for a hearing on the expected charges related to the obstruction around 2:15 p.m. Wednesday. The Daily News was the first to report on the development.

There was no comment from a spokesman for District Attorney Alvin Bragg on the expected charges. A spokesman for the Captains Manning Association, which represents high-ranking NYPD officials, also declined to comment. A DOI spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but in recent weeks she has declined to comment on the ongoing criminal investigation.

The 47-page investigation came nearly two years after allegations surfaced that de Blasio used his equipment to bring his son back to college in Connecticut, among other alleged violations.

The report concluded that there were numerous instances in which the mayor’s security team, from the New York Police Department’s Intelligence Office, Executive Protection Unit (EPU), was misused for the personal benefit of his children or for political purposes during his presidential campaign.

Among those:

• “numerous instances where UPR members transported mayoral staff to various locations, including to their homes, and helped them run errands for the mayor”
• “several cases in which the security team was asked to transport the mayor’s guests, under his direction, without him being present in the vehicle”
• $319,794 in city expenses for the security detail to travel with the mayor during his presidential campaign, none of which have been reimbursed
• “UPR members occasionally transported Mayor de Blasio’s campaign staff while driving the mayor. Both reflect a use of NYPD resources for political gain.”
• “The security team has been conducting frequent security checks at homes owned by the mayor in Brooklyn, where neither he nor his family members currently reside.”

“In addition to the misuse of EPU personnel and resources, DOI’s investigation identified several vulnerabilities in EPU’s policies and procedures,” the city’s Department of Investigation concluded.

But the report took even stronger aim at the NYPD, and Redmond in particular.

“Inspector Redmond attempted to obstruct this investigation by refusing to provide his city-issued phone for production, deliberately seeking to destroy his NYPD-issued phone after being told to turn it over for production to DOI, and deleting all communications from both phones before they could be turned over to the DOI,” he said. “These actions are a continuation of his conduct during his DOI sworn interview, in which he demonstrated a lack of candor, repeatedly stated that he could not recall the facts surrounding matters under his direct supervision, and gave multiple responses that were not credible to the light of objective evidence and the sworn statements of other witnesses.

Claims that the mayor misused the security team date back to 2019, when law enforcement sources told NBC New York that de Blasio had the team drive his son Dante to Yale on multiple occasions.

Some of those cases occurred when the mayor was not present, the law enforcement source told NBC 4 at the time.

The source said the mayor’s NYPD security team took Dante to Yale “numerous” times when he was enrolled. The source also indicated that there was no specific threat to Dante de Blasio at the time of some of those trips.

The DOI report referred to those trips, and others as well, including an episode in which NYPD personnel moved furniture, a futon, for the mayor’s daughter.

“Protecting the mayor and his family is serious and significant work that must be guided by best practices, formalized procedures, and the understanding that security details are not personal assistants in the daily life of a dignitary, but rather provide essential protection.” DOI Commissioner Margaret Garnett said in a statement at the time.

The full DOI report can be read here.