Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday nominated Nadia Shihata, a former federal prosecutor, to be the commissioner of New York City’s Department of Investigation, a corruption-fighting agency that in recent years has seen its power dwindle.
Ms. Shihata will help usher in a “culture of competence, transparency and honesty,” to the city Mr. Mamdani said. She previously investigated corruption, gangs and organized crime as a prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York, where she led the case against the singer R. Kelly, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for sex crimes.
“There will be zero tolerance for self-enrichment or corruption in my City Hall,” he said during a news conference in the Blue Room at City Hall, where he alluded to the corruption scandals that engulfed his predecessor, Eric Adams.
Mr. Adams and many of his allies became the subjects of investigations by the Department of Investigation, which oversees inspector generals across the city and worked alongside the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors in 2024. Mr. Adams was indicted by federal prosecutors on charges that were later dropped at the behest of President Trump’s Department of Justice. The job of the commissioner, who is supposed to be independent and impartial, can be an awkward assignment even when a mayor is not federally charged.
The previous commissioner, Jocelyn Strauber, was nominated by Mr. Adams and helped lead those investigations into his administration. Ms. Strauber resigned last month in a brief letter she sent to Mr. Mamdani that praised the “extraordinary DOI team.”
In 2018, Mayor Bill de Blasio fired Mark G. Peters, a former friend and the commissioner during his administration. Their relationship deteriorated as Mr. Peters produced numerous reports that exposed significant failings in city agencies, embarrassing Mr. de Blasio.Mr. Peters said he believed he was fired because Mr. de Blasio wanted to stop him from following through on certain investigations.
Mr. Mamdani described Ms. Shihata as “scrupulous” and noted that, as an Egyptian American, she would be the first woman of color to hold the position.
Ms. Shihata was a federal prosecutor for more than 11 years in Brooklyn, where she was the chief of the organized crime and gangs unit and the public integrity unit, which prosecutes crimes like the bribery of public officials. She left the office in September 2022, when she and Elizabeth Geddes, another prosecutor in the R. Kelly case, started their own law firm focused on civil rights, sexual misconduct, internal investigations and criminal defense.
Ms. Shihata said she saw the job of commissioner as a continuation of the work she did at the U.S. attorney’s office.
The Department of Investigation looks into possible corruption, fraud and waste across city agencies and offices. If it finds criminal wrongdoing, the department can refer cases to prosecutors and work with them.
The department is designed to provide another check on mayors and their administration officials. But since 2019, it has received less money every year and dozens of positions have gone unfilled.
In 2024, Ms. Strauber sought permission from the city’s Office of Management and Budget to hire 23 staff members at a cost of $1.4 million. In the end, only 10 more people were hired.
Ms. Strauber said last year that the department’s “staffing challenges” had led to delays in issuing reports and sometimes caused investigators and other workers to juggle complex inquiries.
Mr. Mamdani and Ms. Shihata did not talk about the department’s recent staffing problems. In his remarks, Mr. Mamdani noted that City Hall sits across from the Tweed Courthouse, named after William “Boss” Tweed, the 19th-century political leader whose name became synonymous with graft and corruption. The Department of Investigation was created in part as a response to the municipal scandals of the 1870s that led to public outrage over the misconduct of city officials.
Maria Cramer is a Times reporter covering the New York Police Department and crime in the city and surrounding areas.
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