A former top New York Police Department official who resigned last week after being accused of sexually abusing female officers denied the misconduct allegations on Friday, although he let his lawyer do all the talking.
The former official, Jeffrey Maddrey, who until a week ago was the department’s highest-ranking uniformed officer, stood by quietly as the lawyer, Lambros Lambrou, railed against the accusations while speaking to reporters at his Lower Manhattan office.
The accusations against his client, Mr. Lambrou said, came from embittered subordinates, including a lieutenant who had engaged in overtime abuse, had wound up under investigation and had then said Mr. Maddrey coerced her into sex to “deflect her wrongdoing.”
“Those allegations are a lie,” said Mr. Lambrou, a personal injury lawyer who has represented Mr. Maddrey, whose title was chief of department, in other matters.
Mr. Maddrey’s abrupt departure in the face of the misconduct allegations set off several investigations and added to the turmoil engulfing the Police Department and the administration of his longtime friend Mayor Eric Adams.
Neither Mr. Maddrey, who wore a black suit and maroon tie and kept his hands clasped in front of him, nor his lawyer took questions on Friday during what Mr. Lambrou had billed as an “opportunity to gain first-hand information and insights.”
It was the first time Mr. Maddrey had faced reporters since a New York Post article on Dec. 21 that quoted the police lieutenant accusing him of pressuring her to have sex in exchange for authorizing her to file for more overtime.
Eric Sanders, a lawyer for the lieutenant, Quathisha Epps, filed a formal complaint against Mr. Maddrey with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Lieutenant Epps’s behalf. In a blog post describing the complaint, he wrote that Mr. Maddrey had taken advantage of her financial problems and vulnerable emotional status as the survivor of a traumatic childhood and domestic abuse to force her into “unwanted sexual acts in exchange for professional benefits, including overtime opportunities.”
Lieutenant Epps earned more than $403,000 this year, according to city payroll records. More than half of the money came in the form of overtime, the records show. She was suspended on Dec. 18, according to an internal police document. She filed for retirement around the same time.
The Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau had been investigating Lieutenant Epps’s overtime since October, Mr. Lambrou said. When she realized she had been caught abusing the system, he said, she blamed Mr. Maddrey.
Mr. Sanders did not respond to messages seeking comment.
In his blog post, which outlines his federal complaint, Mr. Sanders said that after Lieutenant Epps began to resist Mr. Maddrey’s advances, other high-ranking police officials had started to manipulate her overtime slips “to portray Epps as an abuser of overtime falsely.”
The Police Department declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
Mr. Maddrey approached Lieutenant Epps in her office this month about the overtime investigation and offered to speak to Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, on her behalf, Mr. Sanders wrote in the blog post.
“But only on the condition that she perform a coerced sexual act,” he wrote. “Feeling she had no other choice, Epps complied under duress.”
Later, he added, she felt “devastated” and filed for retirement.
“Lieutenant Epps’s courage in coming forward sheds light on the pervasive culture of exploitation and retaliation within the N.Y.P.D,” Mr. Sanders wrote. “This is not just about holding one individual accountable; it’s about dismantling a system that allows abuse to thrive unchecked.”
Mr. Lambrou said on Friday that Mr. Maddrey, a 34-year veteran of the department, had resigned because he had “reached his boiling point.”
“Now, without the constraints of the N.Y.P.D., he’s going to take the gloves off and fight for his good name,” he said.
Mr. Lambrou said Mr. Maddrey and Lieutenant Epps had been in a consensual but “brief” relationship and that there were text messages, videos and photos to prove it.
Federal investigators and the city’s Department of Investigation are examining the overtime issue and the allegations of misconduct against Mr. Maddrey, according to two people familiar with the matter. The Manhattan district attorney is also investigating.
Mr. Lambrou said he had not been contacted by investigators.
Mr. Maddrey has been accused by at least three female officers of using his position over them to harass them and solicit sex over the past eight years.
Another former subordinate, Capt. Gabrielle Walls, told The New York Times that Mr. Maddrey had repeatedly made advances to her. Captain Walls said she had hidden in her office more than a dozen times to avoid him.
If he found her, she said, “I knew it was when the kissing would start.”
Captain Walls sued the city in July accusing another top police official of sexual harassment. She added Mr. Maddrey’s name to her complaint several days before Lieutenant Epps went public with her allegations.
Mr. Lambrou said on Friday that Captain Walls had acted out of anger.
“Seems she’s upset that she’s not been promoted,” he said. “Jeff has never laid a finger on her or even looked at her the wrong way.”
John Scola, a lawyer for Captain Walls, said that “those statements are demonstrably false.”
Captain Walls named Mr. Maddrey as a defendant in her complaint, Mr. Scola said, only “after both the City and the N.Y.P.D. failed to take any corrective action.”
In 2016, Tabatha Foster, a former officer, sued Mr. Maddrey in state and federal court, accusing him of making persistent sexual advances. A federal judge dismissed the suit in 2019, and the state suit was dismissed this year.
A flurry of internal transfers has been ordered at the department since the allegations against Mr. Maddrey surfaced and he resigned. In the past week, at least 29 officers have been moved into new jobs. Sixteen had earned more than $100,000 in overtime pay in the last fiscal year. Several had worked under Mr. Maddrey, according to an analysis by The Times.
Commissioner Tisch, who was appointed last month, has been cracking down on overtime, and Mr. Adams has ordered members of his City Hall staff to oversee overtime spending at the police, fire, corrections and sanitation departments and to provide monthly reports, according to a directive he sent to the agencies’ commissioners this past Monday.
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