The NYPD and federal authorities searched the homes of current and former high-ranking police officials as part of a bribery investigation — the latest in a string of law enforcement actions targeting corruption in the nation’s largest police force.
The searches came the same day as Frank Carone, who was chief of staff to former Mayor Eric Adams, was indicted in a separate corruption case. Carone has denied wrongdoing.
The searches targeted former NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, who resigned in late 2024 amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
The two other top officials being investigated alongside Maddrey are Tarik Sheppard, the department’s former deputy commissioner of public information, and James McCarthy, the current chief of Manhattan South, a law enforcement official said. It was not immediately clear what their alleged involvement was.
NYPD spokesperson Brad Weekes said McCarthy was put on modified duty, transferred and replaced Wednesday morning by Assistant Chief Melissa Eger, who had been serving as the Staten Island borough commander. Sheppard retired from the department last year.
None of the NYPD officials at the core of Wednesday’s investigation had been arrested or charged, Weekes said.
Gothamist left phone messages for Maddrey, McCarthy and Sheppard that were not immediately returned.
Federal search warrants require a judge’s signature and investigators must show they have probable cause that a crime has been committed.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch took over the NYPD amid sprawling federal investigations into top department leadership and vowed to manage the department as a reformer to root out corruption.
“When I became police commissioner, I promised New Yorkers that under my leadership the NYPD would conduct itself with integrity and that there would be a thorough investigation of any claim that members of service failed to meet that standard,” Tisch wrote in her tweet Wednesday.
“This investigation and our actions this morning are part of the ongoing effort to fulfill that commitment and hold the department to its highest ideals.”
Maddrey resigned as the department’s highest-ranking uniformed officer in 2024 after a subordinate accused him of demanding sexual favors in exchange for more overtime hours.
Sheppard resigned from the department in 2025 after being demoted from his position as the chief spokesperson. A former interim police commissioner, Tom Donlon, sued him and other top officials in civil court later that year.
Donlon alleged Sheppard leaked information about his wife’s arrest to the media in an attempt to smear him.
Their resignations followed other episodes of upheaval within the NYPD under Adams. Police Commissioner Edward Caban, whom Adams appointed in July 2023, left a little more than a year later as he and his twin brother were investigated for accepting payments from nightclubs in exchange for better police treatment.
A month later, then-Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Phil Banks also resigned as he became ensnared in his own federal investigation.
