The wife of a top NYPD official with close ties to Mayor Eric Adams has quietly been pocketing a six-figure salary in a newly-created gig she was appointed to nearly two years ago, The Post has learned.
Jasmine Sheppard was appointed to the $180,000 a year role of “chief communications strategy officer” at the Department of Youth & Community Development in November 2022, according to her husband’s newly-filed financial disclosure forms.
City Hall never publicly announced the new position, nor Sheppard’s appointment to the role.
No job description or listing for the position could be found online.
According to the DYCD’s organizational chart, the chief communications strategy officer manages the department’s chief public information officer.
Sheppard previously worked in corporate communications for the United States Tennis Association, with her name appearing on about a dozen press releases from the group between 2010 and 2020, which is when she appears to have left the post.
She’s also served as the “Voice of God” assisting the co-hosts of the annual fundraising gala for the non-profit Trey Whitfield Foundation, which promotes equal access to educational opportunities for young people, since 2004.
Her husband, Tarik Sheppard, who had been part of Adams’ inner circle along with other NYPD bigwigs, was named Deputy Commissioner of Public Information for the police department last August, a role that comes with a salary of around $240,000 a year.
The position held by Jasmine Sheppard, an associate commissioner level role, did not previously exist at the department prior to her hiring, according to a Post review of records from the DYCD and the Conflict of Interest Board, which publishes an annual list of public employees with “substantial policy discretion.”
Michael Deutsch previously served as chief information officer, also an associate commissioner role, and left just before Sheppard was hired, but his role was tasked with data and IT management and initiatives, according to his LinkedIn.
A rep for the DYCD did not respond to questions about what the chief communications strategy officer role entailed. City Hall did not return a request for comment.
Reached by phone Monday, Tarik Sheppard denied that the role was created for his wife and and claimed “she applied for a position vacated by someone.”
“The joke of it is that you guys continuously write stuff and your vetting process is very weak and we continue to show that. I don’t care what you write and neither does she,” he said, before hanging up.
Since Adams took office, Sheppard has leaped up the ranks of the NYPD, jumping from captain to deputy inspector to deputy commissioner in just over 18 months.
This isn’t the first significant other in Adams’ circle to land a high-paying gig in his administration.
Shortly after the mayor’s brother, Bernard Adams, accepted a $1-a-year job as head of mayoral security, his wife Sharon Adams was hired as a “strategic initiative specialist” in the education department with a $150,000 salary, the non-profit news agency, The City, reported last year.
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