Federal investigators seize phones from NYC police boss, 3 top mayoral deputies

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Federal investigators seize phones from NYC police boss, 3 top mayoral deputies

2024-09-06 07:35 Last Updated At：07:40

NEW YORK (AP) — Federal investigators this week seized phones from New York City's police commissioner and at least three top deputies to New York Mayor Eric Adams, according to people familiar with the matter.

FBI agents seized electronic devices Wednesday from the homes of Philip Banks, the deputy mayor for public safety; Timothy Pearson, a mayoral adviser and former high-ranking New York Police Department official; and First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, said two people who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

One of them said federal investigators also seized devices from the home of Police Commissioner Edward Caban.

The searches add to a roster of investigative activity around Adams's administration, his campaign and the first-term Democrat himself. He previously received subpoenas and had his electronics seized in federal inquiries.

Federal authorities haven't accused him or any of his officials of any crimes, and Adams, a retired police captain, has denied any wrongdoing.

“I have been clear that my message throughout my public life is to follow the law,” Adams said Thursday evening on Fox 5 New York TV.

He told reporters earlier at City Hall that if the administration has information that’s needed, it will be turned over, “and I’m going to continue to be the mayor of the City of New York.”

Lisa Zornberg, City Hall’s top lawyer, said in a statement that investigators had not indicated that the mayor or his staff were “targets of any investigation.”

The NYPD said in a statement that it was aware of and cooperating with an investigation by Manhattan-based federal prosecutors “involving members of service.” The department directed further inquiries to prosecutors, who declined to comment, as did an FBI spokesperson.

Benjamin Brafman, an attorney for Philip Banks, confirmed that a search was conducted on the homes of Philip Banks and his brother Terence, a consultant.

The searches represent the latest sign that federal authorities are scrutinizing Adams' circle.

He took office as mayor in 2022 after serving as Brooklyn's borough president and as a state senator.

Last fall and winter, the FBI raided the home of a top Adams campaign fundraiser, the residence of an official in the mayor's administration's international affairs office, and properties belonging to Adams' director of Asian affairs.

Federal agents seized the mayor’s phones and iPad as he was leaving a November event in Manhattan. Then he, his campaign arm and City Hall received subpoenas from federal prosecutors earlier this summer.

One of the people with knowledge of the matter has said that the recent subpoenas requested information about the mayor’s schedule, his overseas travel and potential connections to the Turkish government.

The latest round of searches of people close to Adams did not appear to be tied to the Turkish investigation, the person said.

Adams appointed Caban, a veteran NYPD official, as police commissioner last summer. He is the first Latino to lead the nation’s largest police force.

Pearson, whom the mayor has described as a “good friend,” occupies an unusual role in city government, working for the quasi-public Economic Development Corporation, while retaining influence over the police department. He is currently facing multiple lawsuits accusing him of sexually harassing female employees, and he is facing a separate investigation for his role in a brawl at a shelter for homeless migrants. A lawyer representing Pearson in the harassment suit did not immediately respond to a phone call.

Federal prosecutors previously named Banks as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in an investigation into a police bribery scheme during former Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration. Banks abruptly retired in 2014 but returned to city government after Adams took office in 2022.

Wright, the first deputy mayor, lives with her partner, David Banks, the city’s schools chancellor and brother of Philip and Terence Banks. It was not immediately clear whether investigators also sought records related to David Banks.

Terence Banks founded a consulting firm “dedicated to connecting businesses with government and community stakeholders" after he retired last year from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The agency runs subways, buses and commuter railroads and is not overseen by the mayor, who appoints some members of its board.

An attorney for Terence Banks, Timothy Sini, said in an email that his client had been assured by the government that he was “not a target of this investigation.”

The news outlet The City was first to report the searches of Wright's and Philip Banks' homes.

A spokesperson for the city’s Law Department declined to comment.

This story has been corrected to show the correct spelling of the deputy mayor for public safety's first name is Philip, not Phillip.

Israeli strike on hospital tent camp kills 4 and ignites a fire that burns dozens

2024-10-14 15:53 Last Updated At：16:00

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli airstrike on a hospital courtyard in the Gaza Strip early Monday killed at least four people and triggered a fire that swept through a tent camp for people displaced by the war, leaving more than two dozen with severe burns, according to Palestinian medics.

The Israeli military said it targeted militants hiding out among civilians, without providing evidence. In recent months it has repeatedly struck crowded shelters and tent camps, alleging that Hamas fighters were using them as staging grounds for attacks.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah was already struggling to treat a large number of wounded from an earlier strike on a school-turned-shelter that killed at least 20 people when the early morning airstrike hit and fire engulfed many of the tents.

Several secondary explosions could be heard after the initial strike, but it was not immediately clear if they were caused by weapons or fuel tanks.

Associated Press footage showed children among the wounded. A man sobbed as he carried a toddler with a bandaged head in his arms. Another small child with a bandaged leg was given a blood transfusion on the floor of the packed hospital.

Hospital records showed that four people were killed and 40 wounded. Twenty-five people were transferred to the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza after suffering severe burns, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Israel is still carrying out near-daily strikes across the Gaza Strip more than a year into the war, and has been waging a major ground assault in the north, where it says militants have regrouped.

The war began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, while Palestinian militants abducted around 250 hostages. Around 100 are still being held inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters but says women and children make up more than half the fatalities. Around 90% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million people have been displaced by the war, often multiple times, and large areas of the coastal territory have been completely destroyed.

Israel has ordered the entire remaining population of the northern third of Gaza, estimated at around 400,000 people, to evacuate to the south and has not allowed any food to enter the north since the start of the month. Hundreds of thousands of people from the north heeded Israeli evacuation orders at the start of the war and have not been allowed to return.

That has raised fears among Palestinians that Israel intends to implement a plan devised by former generals in which it would order all civilians out of northern Gaza and label anyone remaining there a combatant — a surrender-or-starve strategy that rights groups say would violate international law. The plan has been presented to the Israeli government, but it's unclear whether it has been adopted.

With no end in sight to the war in Gaza, Israel is also waging an air and ground war in southern Lebanon against the Hezbollah militant group, an ally of Hamas that has been firing rockets into northern Israel for more than a year. Israel has also threatened to strike Iran in retaliation for a ballistic missile attack, raising the prospect of an all-out regionwide war.

A Hezbollah aerial attack on an army base in northern Israel killed four soldiers — all of them 19 years old — and severely wounded seven others Sunday, the military said, in the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago.

Hezbollah called the attack near Binyamina city retaliation for Israeli strikes on Beirut on Thursday that killed 22 people. It said it targeted Israel’s elite Golani brigade, launching dozens of missiles to occupy Israeli air defense systems during the assault by drones.

Israel’s national rescue service said the attack wounded 61. It’s rare for so many people to be wounded by drones or missiles, most of which are intercepted by Israel's multitiered air defenses or fall in open areas.

Magdy reported from Cairo.

Find more of AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.