NEW YORK (AP) — New York Police Commissioner Edward Caban resigned Thursday, a week after it was announced that his phone was confiscated as part of a federal investigation which touched several members of Mayor Eric Adams’ inner circle.
Caban, who served as head of the country’s largest police department for about 15 months, said in an email to staff that he decided to resign after “news of recent developments” “created a distraction for our agency.”
“I am not prepared to focus my attention on anything other than our important work or the safety of the men and women of the NYPD,” he added in the email, which was obtained by The Associated Press.
At a news conference Thursday, Adams praised Caban for “making our city safer” and said he had appointed retired FBI agent Tom Donlon as interim police chief.
Donlon previously served as director of the FBI’s National Threat Center and once headed the Homeland Security Office 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 bombing and the USS Cole bombing.
Donlon said in a statement that he was “honored and humbled” to lead the “world’s largest law enforcement agency” and that his priorities would include eliminating illegal weapons from the population.
Caban’s resignation is the first resignation of a senior official from the Adams administration since federal investigators seized the phones of several members of the mayor’s inner circle on Sept. 4, including two deputy mayors, the schools chancellor and a top Adams adviser.
The subject of the investigation, which is being led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, remains unclear, as does whether federal authorities were seeking information related to one or more investigations.
Caban’s attorneys Russell Capone and Rebekah Donaleski said in a statement Thursday that the government had informed them that “he is not the target of any investigation by the Southern District of New York and he intends to cooperate fully with the government.”
The Justice Department defines a target of an investigation as someone against whom prosecutors or a grand jury have collected substantial evidence linking the person to a crime. This is in contrast to a subject, which is someone whose conduct is merely within the scope of the investigation. But these definitions are notoriously fluid, and a person who is not considered a technical target today may become a target the next day as new information emerges.
Federal authorities also investigate Caban’s twin brother, James Caban, a former NYPD sergeant, runs a nightclub security company, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person could not publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
James Caban “unequivocally denies any wrongdoing,” his attorney Sean Hecker said in a statement. “His work – as a consultant and as a liaison between the department and a private company – is perfectly legal, especially given his previous career as an NYPD officer,” Hecker continued.
James Caban was fired from the New York Police Department in 2001 after he was recorded illegally detaining a taxi driver whom he accused of stealing $100 and threatening to take away his vehicle.
Other officials whose devices were recently seized include First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, Philip Banks, the deputy mayor for public safety, his brother David Banks, the schools chancellor, and Timothy Pearson, an aide to the mayor and former senior NYPD official, according to people familiar with the matter. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the investigation.
Adams, a Democrat in his first term, was summoned in July, eight months after federal agents confiscated his cell phones and an iPad as he left an event in Manhattan. Federal authorities have not publicly accused him or other officials of a crime, and Adams has denied any wrongdoing.
The investigation that led to the seizure of Edward Caban’s devices is not believed to be related to an investigation that led federal investigators to seize Adams’ devices last November, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Caban, 57, was the first Latino to lead the 179-year-old NYPD. He started as a patrol officer in 1991 in the Bronx, where he grew up, and after his promotion worked in precincts across the city. His father, retired Detective Juan Caban, had served with Adams, a former police captain, when they were both on the city’s transit police force. Three of Caban’s brothers were also police officers.
Before being appointed commissioner last year, he was the department’s deputy.
Caban replaced Keechant Sewell, the first woman to lead the troupe. She resigned 18 months of her term in office were overshadowed by speculation that she was not really in charge.
As commissioner, Caban was responsible for the continued decline in some key crime categories, including shootings and murders, but he was also criticized for his handling of officer discipline, including two officers who were fatal shooting of a black manKawaski Trawick, in his Bronx apartment in 2019.
Donlon’s appointment marks the first time in more than two decades that someone with no prior experience at a local police department has taken over as head of the NYPD. Close observers of the agency called the move politically strategic and potentially risky.
“It gives the mayor some credibility at a time when his police department and his administration are facing federal investigations,” said Jeffrey Fagan, a professor at Columbia Law School who specializes in policing. “At the same time, the question is, is someone with no experience in a complex urban police department and no real power base going to be able to clean up this mess?”
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Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
