Jeffrey Maddrey

Eric Adams had pledged on the campaign trail that he would appoint a woman to run the NYPD, and he followed through, naming Keechant Sewell to the post. But throughout her tenure, rumors swirled that Sewell was a figurehead, and that the real power in the Department flowed down from Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks and NYPD brass favored by Adams. Among these was Jeffrey Maddrey, who was elevated to chief of department, the NYPD’s highest uniformed position, in 2022, reportedly over Sewell’s objections.

In 2016, Maddrey was sued for $100 million in federal court by Tabatha Foster, a former police officer who worked under Maddrey at the 75th precinct. Foster alleged that Maddrey sexually harrassed, assaulted and defamed her. Foster’s federal suit was ultimately dismissed, with Foster withdrawing her charges after Maddrey countersued, alleging defamation, libel, and assault. A state lawsuit filed by Foster in 2019 remains open. In depositions, Foster described Maddrey initiating sex and demanding blow-jobs from her in his office, alleging Maddrey would have his NYPD driver at the time, Kaz Daughtry, drive him to her house to have sex. Maddrey, who was married and has children, denied any sexual relationship began until 2012, after he was no longer her boss. He denied Daughtry’s involvement, and painted Foster as an attention-seeker who pursued him and sought to hurt him after he rejected her, effectively brushing her off as a vindictive woman scorned. In her deposition, Foster testified that Maddrey told her “Crazy pussy is the best pussy.” (Maddrey admitted he said this but said that it was a reference to a meme she’d shared with him.)

Maddrey tried to dissuade Foster from talking about their sexual relationship, according to depositions. “Okay, fuck it if that’s what you want to tell everyone, go ahead, lie or not. I might look bad. You will look 10 times worse. So tell the world.” Maddrey allegedly wrote to Foster in one text cited in a deposition. “Tell the world you licked my ass, too,” he allegedly wrote in another text referred to in a deposition. “Fuck it. Go be honest Abe.”

At one point in the relationship, Foster alleged in her lawsuit, Maddrey assaulted her in a Queens Park, leading her to draw a gun on him. “After I put it down he choked me,” she testified in a deposition. “He threw me from side to side like a rag doll and he just really beat me up. He really beat the hell out of me.” Maddrey denied hitting Foster, and denied seeing her point a gun at him. When police eventually arrived on the scene, according to court records, Maddrey waved them off.

But Maddrey also had to contend with an NYPD investigation into the incident. Internal Affairs investigators determined that Maddrey lied to them on two counts, a finding that should result in immediate dismissal if an officer is found guilty of them, “absent exceptional circumstances,” according to NYPD guideline. (Investigators also determined that Maddrey’s relationship with Foster began not in 2012, but in 2009) But NYPD leadership dropped the lying charges without public explanation and Maddrey kept his job, pleading to the lesser charges: engaging in an off-duty altercation, failing to call a supervisor to the scene of an altercation, and wrongfully impeding a department investigation. He was penalized by having to give up 45 vacation days. “The ‘exceptional circumstances’ are, he’s a chief,” a former NYPD head of disciplinary trials told the Daily News. “There’s no other way to look at this.” (Maddrey’s lawyer told the Daily News NYPD leadership dropped the more serious lying charges because, while they were substantiated by Internal Affairs, he persuaded them that they “would not hold up in the trial room.”)

A lawsuit Foster brought against the Daily News for publishing racy selfies she says she sent only to Maddrey is also ongoing. The NYPD did not respond to questions posed to Maddrey for this entry.

More recently, Maddrey has been in the headlines for a 2021 event in which sources told the City he ordered police to void the arrest of a retired former colleague of his who was in custody after allegedly pulling a gun on some children after their basketball banged a security camera at the business where he worked (the retired officer denied pulling a gun, and the NYPD said he was a victim of criminal mischief).

The NYPD initially denied that Maddrey—then the NYPD’s head of community affairs—had ordered the arrest voided. The Brooklyn district attorney found no criminality in Maddrey’s actions, and an Internal Affairs investigation found he’d done nothing wrong. But an abundance of video evidence sure made it seem like Maddrey had been involved, and an investigation by the Civilian Complaint Review Board found that Maddrey had ordered the arrest be voided, substantiating charges of abuse of authority. 

Eric Adams—who in instances that don’t involve his friends talks a lot about the need to let the NYPD disciplinary process play out without mayoral interference—sprung to Maddrey’s defense, saying his fellow freemason had “handled it appropriately.” Brooklyn clergy, a power base loyal to Adams and Maddrey, turned out in his defense as well. But Adams’s police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, reportedly delivered an official reprimand anyway, shortly before throwing in the towel and resigning as commissioner. Rather than accept the reprimand, Maddrey vowed to fight the disciplinary charges in a departmental trial.