NEW YORK — The head of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s police detail is still on the job despite a referral to the Manhattan district attorney’s office for potential criminal charges over allegations he covered up the mayor using his security officers as glorified chauffeurs.
NYPD Inspector Howard Redmond is on full duty, even though a city Department Investigation report found that he obstructed a probe into the mayor’s improper use of his bodyguards.
“The NYPD has looked at the information provided. They don’t see a reason for further charges,” de Blasio said Tuesday. “We have not heard from the Manhattan DA, and so at this point, it’s simply an allegation. He continues to do his work on behalf of the people. He’s spent almost 30 years in the service of people. He will continue,” de Blasio said.
Redmond is accused of giving answers that were “not credible,” and delaying handing in communications about the detail, according to the DOI report issued Thursday. When Redmond finally turned over a phone, it was essentially unused.
When DOI Commissioner Margaret Garnett obtained Redmond’s NYPD and City Hall phones last summer, text messages were set to automatically delete and thousands of communications were scrubbed.
“Inspector Redmond sought to obstruct this investigation by refusing to provide his City-Hall-issued phone for production, deliberately seeking to destroy his NYPD-issued phone after he was informed that he must surrender it for production to DOI, and deleting all communications from both phones before they could be provided to DOI,” Garnett wrote in the report.
Garnet concluded that the mayor and his family used his security force as “essentially a concierge service.” Detectives from the detail moved his daughter, Chiara, drove his son, Dante, to Yale University and picked up his brother and gave lifts to campaign staffers.
City Councilman Ben Kallos, D-Manhattan, blasted the inaction against Redmond and said it sounds like the inspector “covered for the mayor and now the mayor is covering for him.”
“The mayor and his family should be ashamed of themselves,” Kallos said. “When a city agency has documented obstruction of an investigation and alleged destruction of evidence, that should be taken very seriously and the officers involved should be suspended immediately.”
When asked by the Daily News why Redmond hasn’t been modified, considering NYPD cops are often placed on desk duty for far less serious accusations, de Blasio demurred without elaborating.
“I don’t know if agree with you on that statement,” he said.
Current and retired officers scoffed at de Blasio’s answer.
“I’m shocked that he’s not modified,” said a sergeant who asked for anonymity. “Cops have been modified for far less who are, by the way, not the subjects of major citywide investigations which found wrongdoing and led to a criminal referral.”
A detective echoed that disbelief.
“In any other case, I would be modified especially if there was a DA referral,” said the detective. “That’s the sad part — we get modified and they always protect the bosses.”
“His treatment is going to completely different than any cop,” agreed a retired detective who also asked for anonymity. “Bosses always get treated differently.”
The Department of Investigation also found that the city shelled out nearly $320,000 on the detail’s travel and expenses during de Blasio’s failed 2020 presidential run and that the mayor “has not reimbursed the city for these expenses, either personally or through his campaign.” The estimated cost for that ended up being nearly $100,000 more than what The News first projected in January 2020.
De Blasio spokeswoman Danielle Filson said Thursday the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board was reviewing “who should pay for NYPD expenses.”
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