The NYPD has scheduled a disciplinary trial of its highest ranking uniformed officer, Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, for June 24, THE CITY has learned.
The proceeding would be rare, if not unprecedented, in its focus on a ranking officer at the very top of the police hierarchy. Maddrey presides over the department’s nearly 34,000 uniformed officers.
The case is being prosecuted by the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which just over a year ago found that Maddrey abused his authority in late 2021 when he ordered the voiding of the arrest of a retired police officer who had allegedly menaced three young boys with a gun in Brooklyn.
Evidence newly obtained by THE CITY surfaces testimony from a desk sergeant who alleged that Maddrey called him screaming, asking why the ex-cop had been arrested. Audio tape also shows that one of the youths frantically called 911 while allegedly being chased by the retired officer, saying the former officer had pointed a gun at him, something the ex-cop denies.
The retired officer, Kruythoff Forrester, worked under Maddrey in Brownsville’s 73rd Precinct, where the November 2021 incident occurred. Maddrey visited the precinct house after the ex-cop was brought in and booked. Forrester was released less than 90 minutes after Maddrey and a deputy chief arrived, as THE CITY previously reported and documented on video obtained through a Freedom of Information request.
The NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau also investigated the incident but found no wrongdoing by Maddrey.
In its vote last April, the CCRB recommended that Maddrey be docked a maximum of 10 days’ pay for improperly intervening in the arrest — a penalty that typically doesn’t require a disciplinary trial.
Then NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell chose to impose the recommendation, a decision that put her directly at odds with Mayor Eric Adams and eventually contributed to her abrupt resignation last June.
Maddrey declined to accept the punishment and instead invoked his right to an administrative trial, overseen by an NYPD hearing officer.
The hearing officer’s decision in the case would only be advisory, with the final decision on whether Maddrey should face discipline in the hands of Sewell’s replacement, Edward Caban.
Maddrey’s attorney, Lambros Lambrou, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
If the case proceeds as planned, it would be a rare public disciplinary trial of such a high-ranking member of the police department, according to a former administrative trial judge, Rae Koshetz.
She recalled handling cases of members in the rank of captain and deputy inspector — including one who was accused of robbing a drug dealer of $60,000 in 1996 — but not any that approached the upper echelon.
“I’ve never heard of anything quite like this before,” said Koshetz. “It’s highly unusual, that’s for sure.”
In recent months, Maddrey has kept a lower public profile than some of his underlings — particularly Chief of Patrol John Chell and Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry, who have been vocal in the media and on X touting the department’s achievements while pushing back on critics.
Daughtry recently posted on X that Maddrey had passed New York’s state bar exam, which Daughtry wrote “will only enhance his capabilities to serve and lead us even better.”
The disciplinary trial is approaching amid uncertainty at the top of the CCRB.
Interim chair Arva Rice was recently asked by Mayor Eric Adams to step down as interim chair — while continuing to serve her term as a regular board member.
Rice was appointed to the board in June 2021, under the administration of former Mayor Bill de Blasio, and was named interim chair by Adams in February 2022.
Adams said at a press conference Tuesday that it’s the mayor’s right to appoint a permanent chair at his own discretion.
A spokesperson for the board said Tuesday that, at least for now, Rice is still serving as interim chair.
‘He Was Just Screaming’
The incident that led to Maddrey’s disciplinary trial started on Thanksgiving eve 2021 after three boys passed a storefront owned by Forrester’s family, and one of them threw a basketball that dislodged a security camera above the door.
Forrester pursued the kids around the block for about seven minutes before returning to his building. When cops arrived, he showed them his licensed gun in a holster on his right hip, but insisted repeatedly that he had never pulled it out.
Forrester was arrested after the patrol sergeant got matching accounts from the boys about what the ex-cop’s gun looked like and where he had drawn it from.
Forrester invoked Maddrey’s name numerous times after he was arrested, the video investigation published last March by THE CITY showed.
After THE CITY’s reporting on the issue, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams joined the kids and their supporters in a rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall while east Brooklyn pastors came to Maddrey’s defense, all while Adams lauded Maddrey for his work for the city.
The CCRB investigation released last April found that Maddrey, then the chief of the department’s Community Affairs Bureau, displayed a continued effort “to disregard the facts established” by the arresting sergeant’s investigation “for the benefit of [Forrester] and ultimately leading to his release.”
Since that report was published, THE CITY has newly obtained a recording of a 911 call that the oldest boy — then 14 — made while being pursued by Forrester.
When the 911 operator asked the boy where he was, the teen answered, “I don’t know right now. I’m running. He’s chasing me with a gun, somebody.”
In response to the operator asking whether he saw the gun, the boy said, “Yes. He got up real close. He looked at me and he had it in his hand.”
THE CITY has also newly obtained portions of the Internal Affairs Bureau file from the investigation that found no wrongdoing by Maddrey. It included audio of an interview of the desk sergeant on duty when Forrester was arrested — who said he got a phone call from Maddrey before his arrival.
“I guess he was upset that this person was arrested. He was just screaming,” the desk sergeant told IAB investigators.
The sergeant told investigators that Maddrey suggested in the phone call that Forrester had been trying to effect an arrest of the three boys, an explanation that Forrester didn’t offer himself.
The desk sergeant said Maddrey and Deputy Chief Scott Henderson, who had also driven to the station house after the arrest, went into a room to view the body-worn camera footage of the incident with the patrol supervisor.
Then, referring to Maddrey, the desk sergeant told investigators, “I don’t know how long later, but he came out and said, ‘This arrest is being voided.’ And then he walked out.”