Last fall, a senior adviser to Mayor Eric Adams was seen physically attacking several security guards at a Midtown migrant shelter. Under his apparent command, the police arrested two of the guards.
Within two weeks, the charges were dropped, and the city Department of Investigation began looking into the conduct of the adviser, Timothy Pearson, one of the mayor’s closest confidants and a retired police inspector who still holds significant sway over the Police Department.
But Mr. Pearson’s questionable behavior did not end at the shelter. He made a previously unreported visit to the Midtown South precinct station house, according to the guards and two people familiar with the matter.
There, he confronted the guards, Leesha Bell and Terrence Rosenthal, as they stood handcuffed in front of the precinct’s desk while their arrests were being processed.
“I told you all I’ll have your jobs,” Mr. Pearson said, according to Ms. Bell, then a security tour commander who recalled the exchange in her first interview since the October incident.
A short while later, the Midtown South precinct commander visited Ms. Bell in her cell at Mr. Pearson’s request, and said Mr. Pearson wanted to speak to her. The commander said Mr. Pearson had suggested that mutual apologies were in order, and that if she didn’t acquiesce, she might not be released.
Ms. Bell declined. Now she and Mr. Rosenthal are preparing a lawsuit against Mr. Pearson and the city, accusing them of false arrest and malicious prosecution. The lawsuit, which is expected to be filed in the coming weeks, will also include an excessive force allegation from a third guard, Angelica Weldon, who accused Mr. Pearson of pushing her into a wall during the melee, fracturing her shoulder.
Mr. Pearson was one of several top City Hall officials whose cellphones federal agents seized last week as part of an investigation by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
He has been a friend of Mr. Adams, a retired police captain, for decades. The mayor has defended Mr. Pearson since the shelter incident, saying he has never known him to be violent, and hailing him as a Sept. 11 hero.
Fabien Levy, a spokesman for the mayor, said, “We’ll review the lawsuit if and when it is filed.”
Mr. Adams hired Mr. Pearson in 2022 to work as his senior adviser for a salary of $243,000, even as the city’s only casino was paying him between $250,000 and $500,000 to work as its vice president of public safety, according to city records. The arrangement ended after it was disclosed by The New York Times.
Mr. Pearson’s broad portfolio under Mr. Adams includes conducting spot checks at migrant facilities. In an interview in August, Ms. Bell and Mr. Rosenthal said they believed that Mr. Pearson retaliated against them because they challenged his authority. They appear to have offended him by following the very rules that Mr. Pearson, with his spot checks, was supposed to ensure they were upholding.
Ms. Bell, working for a city contractor called Arrow Security, was the tour commander at the Midtown shelter, located at a former Touro University building. Mr. Rosenthal, who also worked for Arrow, was stationed at the shelter’s door.
On the afternoon of Oct. 17, Mr. Pearson walked through the shelter door and demanded entry.
Supervisors at the shelter had drilled it into the security team: Require identification from all those seeking entry to the premises.
“I asked him for his ID, he pushed me,” Mr. Rosenthal said. Three witness statements that the city gathered after the melee recount an unidentified person pushing Mr. Rosenthal.
Ms. Bell was stationed in a booth nearby. In her peripheral vision, she saw Mr. Rosenthal fall sideways, she said. She ran from her booth and confronted Mr. Pearson.
“I said, very loud: ‘Hello, excuse me, who are you? I’m Bell, tour commander at Arrow. How can I help you?’” she said.
Seven witness statements acquired by The Times recount Ms. Bell asking for Mr. Pearson’s identification, and Mr. Pearson aggressively refusing to provide it.
“You don’t know who I am? You don’t know who I am?” he responded, according to Ms. Bell.
“He put his hands around my neck and threw me to the ground,” she said. Twelve witness statements recount Mr. Pearson pushing or putting his hands on Ms. Bell.
In the ensuing melee, Ms. Weldon, the third guard, said that Mr. Pearson pushed her into a wall, fracturing her shoulder. Two witnesses also recounted Mr. Pearson pushing Ms. Weldon. An incident report from that day prepared by the shelter’s supervisors confirms that an ambulance took her to the hospital.
The melee was reported in October by The City, a nonprofit news organization.
As the fight broke out, the police arrived, and Mr. Pearson directed them to arrest Ms. Bell and Mr. Rosenthal, according to the security guards.
Police officers took the two security guards to the Midtown South station house. As the guards were being booked, they were astonished to see Mr. Pearson show up and threaten them.
Ms. Bell remembered calling Mr. Pearson a vulgarity at the time, and said she was angry and humiliated that he would flaunt his authority.
Hours later, while Ms. Bell was in a first-floor holding cell, a police official in a white shirt visited her. She later identified the official as Inspector Edwards.
The inspector said that while he didn’t know what had transpired between her and Mr. Pearson, it clearly had gotten out of hand, Ms. Bell recalled. She declined to apologize to Mr. Pearson, or accept his apology in return.
His unorthodox appearance at the Midtown South station house was corroborated by a city official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, to avoid alienating the mayor’s friend and adviser, and another person familiar with the visit.
The precinct commander, Inspector Edwards, when asked to respond to questions about the episode, referred a reporter to the Police Department’s media relations office.
There was no indication that Inspector Edwards had engaged in any misconduct or violated the Police Department’s Patrol Guide. But the deputy commissioner for public information, Tarik Sheppard, said the matter had nonetheless been referred to the Internal Affairs Bureau to determine whether any department employee had engaged in any wrongdoing.
Mr. Pearson’s conduct at the station house, however, is part of the Department of Investigation inquiry’s into the migrant center episode, a person with knowledge of the matter said. It will also be an element of the guards’ lawsuit, which is being prepared by their lawyer, Jason Steinberger. He said Mr. Pearson’s appearance at the precinct reflected “a consciousness of guilt and was designed solely to coerce them to not report his behavior.”
Several hours after she was first arrested, Ms. Bell was released with a criminal summons charging her with disorderly conduct for “chest bumping” a City Hall official and “forcing him backwards.” The charge is a violation, less serious than a misdemeanor. It was dismissed on Nov. 2. She has since taken a higher-level job at a different security firm.
Mr. Rosenthal’s journey through the criminal justice system was eventful, too.
While in a holding cell at the same Midtown South precinct, a police officer he was unable to identify visited him in his cell to deliver a hamburger from McDonald’s and a message: “Pearson told him to make sure the charges stick,” Mr. Rosenthal said.
Mr. Rosenthal was released after more than a day in custody. Ten days later, a judge dismissed misdemeanor charges against him after the Manhattan district attorney’s office concluded that Mr. Pearson’s allegations were unlikely to hold up in court. In August, Mr. Rosenthal said he remains a security guard at another New York City migrant shelter.
Other legal problems also trail Mr. Pearson.
He has been named as a defendant in four sexual harassment suits filed this year by former subordinates, three of them men who said they were appalled by his behavior toward women in the small unit Mr. Pearson oversees.
All four — two sergeants, a lieutenant and a deputy police chief — were assigned to work with Mr. Pearson in the unit, which was designed to act as quality assurance unit for city services. All accused Mr. Pearson of retaliating against them because they had complained about his conduct, and three said they had retired as a result. They have described Mr. Pearson as a chronic sexual harasser prone to vindictive behavior. The Department of Investigation is also investigating the allegations in the lawsuit.
Mr. Adams has said Mr. Pearson deserves due process in the matter.
John M. Flannery, a partner at Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP who represents Mr. Pearson in the sexual harassment lawsuits, did not respond to a request for comment. The city is paying Mr. Flannery’s fees.
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