Melinda's executive security moving service

 

 

 NY Post

When it absolutely, positively has to get there … trust your bodyguards!

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz used members of her taxpayer-funded security detail to help her move to her new million-dollar digs — potentially running afoul of ethics rules, The Post has learned.

The borough’s top prosecutor was spotted wearing her gold DA’s badge on her hip last week as she carried four boxes of belongings to a black Ford Expedition parked outside the Forest Hills house where she’s been temporarily living since selling her former childhood home for $1.05 million in February.

She then climbed into the official vehicle and was driven about 1.2 miles by a pair of plainclothes NYPD cops to her new three-bedroom, 2-1/2 bathroom Colonial-style house, which city records show she bought late last month for $1.1 million.

The trip was one of four that The Post saw Katz, 56, and her detail make between her old and new homes Tuesday morning. Later in the day, Katz took part in an online Pride event sponsored by her office and appeared to be sitting behind the driver’s seat in the SUV, which had a row of clothes hanging from a rack visible in the rear.

On Friday morning, The Post also saw members of Katz’s security detail carry various items to the SUV from one of the homes while picking up her and her two kids. One cop made three back-and-forth trips, and the other made two. They carried stuff in their hands and in large black plastic bags.

Sources familiar with Katz’s routine told The Post that members of her security detail also had been hauling flat-screen TVs, groceries and dry cleaning around for her, as well as loading her sons’ bicycles and sports gear into an official SUV, driving the family away and returning several hours later.

Katz also regularly had her security detail show up at her home on weekday​ mornings in time for her to accompany her kids as the​ cops drove them to school, after which she returned home, dressed for work and left around 10 a.m., sources said.

 

de Blasio's Guardian Dark Angel

 

NY Post

 Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is mulling criminal charges after a city probe found the NYPD inspector running Mayor Bill de Blasio’s security detail “actively obstructed and sought to thwart” the investigation.

Inspector Howard Redmond — who oversees the police department’s Executive Protection Unit, tasked with the mayor’s security — would be subject to obstruction of justice charges, Department of Investigation Commissioner Margaret Garnett said Thursday.

“Inspector Redmond’s conduct has been referred to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office for possible criminal prosecution,” she told reporters during a press conference after the release of the scathing report. “The criminal matter that we found in the investigation was … the potential obstruction charge.”

In the 49-page report into de Blasio and his use of the security detail, Redmond was found to have stonewalled DOI investigators, refusing to turn over his phone for months until he was ordered to do so by his supervisor. 

“DOI has concluded that the NYPD inspector in charge of the First Family’s security detail actively obstructed and sought to thwart this investigation, frustrating DOI’s efforts to learn the full facts regarding these allegations,” reads a portion of the probe, released Thursday morning.

In Redmond’s effort, he attempted to scrub evidence by, among other actions, destroying his phone, according to the investigation.

“One former NYPD detective told DOI that Inspector Redmond instructed EPU members assigned to the Mayor and his family to communicate with the City Hall resources to impede the NYPD from getting access to EPU communications when ‘dumping’ NYPD phones and emails during investigations,” reads the report. 

The Blaz used the NYPD executive protection unit as chauffeurs and valets

 

 FOX News

 New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio misused police resources on his security detail, a new report released Thursday by the city's Department of Investigation (DOI) says, to assist in his adult daughter's move out of Brooklyn, as well as to transport campaign staff during his presidential bid. 

The DOI found that the Democratic mayor misused police resources by directing members of his Executive Protection Unit (EPU) to help move his daughter, Chiara de Blasio, out of her apartment in Brooklyn in 2018. NYPD personnel helped carry furniture and an NYPD sprinter van carried her belongings to Gracie Mansion, which is the official residence of the mayor of New York City located in Manhattan.

EPU detectives also drove the mayor’s son, Dante de Blasio, to or from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on multiple occasions without either the mayor or his wife and first lady Chirlane McCray present. It was also common practice for the EPU to drive Dante de Blasio to locations around New York City without his father or mother, typically at the direction of EPU superiors.

"Although it is the position of the NYPD Intelligence Bureau that both de Blasio children should have full-time protection, both children declined an assigned detail as adults," the 49-page report says. 

DOI also determined that the City of New York expended $319,794 for the members of Mayor de Blasio’s security detail to travel during his presidential campaign trips. The mayor has still not reimbursed the city for those funds either personally or through his campaign. The report also says that during these campaign trips, EPU members occasionally transported de Blasio’s campaign staffers with the mayor. 

Both reflect a use of NYPD resources for political purposes, according to the DOI. 

For approximately one year, the security detail has been conducting frequent security checks at houses owned by the mayor in Brooklyn, where neither he nor his family members reside. The NYPD inspector in charge of the first family’s security detail "actively obstructed and sought to thwart this investigation, frustrating DOI’s efforts to learn the full facts regarding these allegations," the report says.