New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, and his top New York Police Department officials are being accused by a former police commissioner of running the government agency like a “criminal enterprise,” according to an explosive new lawsuit filed Wednesday in the Southern District of New York.

The former commissioner, Thomas Donlon, who served in an interim role for just two months in 2024, described the NYPD as an enterprise that was “criminal at its core.”

“A coordinated criminal conspiracy had taken root at the highest levels of city government — carried out through wire fraud, mail fraud, honest services fraud, obstruction of justice and retaliation against whistleblowers,” Mr. Donlon alleges.

Mr. Donlon claims in his lawsuit that Mr. Adams allowed his “corrupt” inner circle of top officials, which includes the deputy commissioner, Kaz Daughtry, and the former NYPD deputy commissioner of public information, Tarik Sheppard, to exercise “unchecked power” while Mr. Donlon was “sidelined and used as a public relations shield,” according to the lawsuit.

Mr. Donlon asserts he was “unlawfully targeted” for seeking to “restore integrity” and “raise morale” within the NYPD. 

The lawsuit accuses Messrs. Daughtry and Sheppard, along with the deputy commissioner of legal matters, Michael Gerber, of orchestrating the “false arrest and unlawful detention” of Mr. Donlon’s wife, Deirdre O’Connor-Donlon, and then leaking news of the arrest to the New York Post.

On December 16, 2024, Mrs. O’Connor-Donlon was in bumper-to-bumper traffic when she was hit from behind by a vehicle, causing her to “tap an Uber van which was in front of her.” The vehicle that hit her from behind left the scene. 

Although the lawsuit alleges the incident was “minor and did not require police assistance,” a man driving in the back of the Uber van that she had hit showed Mrs. O’Connor-Donlon a Police Benevolent Association card and demanded that a “bus,” or ambulance, be called to the scene. The passenger called 911, which prompted police to respond. Mrs. O’Connor-Donlon was arrested for driving with lapsed insurance and a suspended license. 

Mr. Donlon alleges that his wife was contacted by a reporter about her arrest immediately following her release from the 17th precinct, where she was processed. The New York Post published an article about her arrest later that same evening.

“This coordinated humiliation was a direct warning: the NYPD defendants would stop at nothing to silence and personally destroy Donlon, even if it meant violating the constitutional rights of his spouse,” the lawsuit states.

These officials allegedly blocked Mr. Donlon’s promotions in favor of “unvetted individuals of their choosing,” using the official police commissioner stamp without Mr. Donlon’s approval to “legitimize and carry out the corrupt scheme.”

The lawsuit accuses Mr. Sheppard, who resigned from the NYPD in April, of “unlawfully” using the official stamp, which was provided to him by the deputy chief, Anthony Marino, to promote himself as the temporary chief of staff to the police commissioner. 

“When Donlon confronted Defendant MARINO, he offered a weak excuse that the stamp being utilized by administrative staff, who had the rank such as Defendant Marino held, was a long-standing practice to ‘alleviate backlog,’” Mr. Donlon claims.

In a statement, Mr. Donlon said his lawsuit was “not a personal grievance.”

Mr. Donlon succeeded Edward Caban as NYPD commissioner after Mr. Caban’s home was raided by the FBI. 

In a statement, the City Hall spokesman, Kayla Mamelak Altus, called Mr. Donlon’s accusations “nothing more than an attempt to seek compensation at the taxpayer’s expense.”

“These are baseless accusations from a disgruntled former employee who — when given the opportunity to lead the greatest police department in the world — proved himself to be ineffective,” Ms. Mamelak Altus said in a statement.