Supported by
Ignoring Ethics Concerns, Adams Selects Ex-Police Official as Deputy Mayor
Philip Banks III, who resigned from the Police Department while under federal investigation, announced his own appointment in a newspaper opinion piece.
As Mayor Eric Adams unveiled top members of his new administration in one splashy news conference after another in recent weeks, one expected move did not come: the naming of a controversial former top police chief as the deputy mayor for public safety.
On Friday morning, the former chief, Philip Banks III, announced his own appointment as deputy mayor in an opinion piece in The Daily News.
Mr. Banks’s appointment had been delayed amid concerns about whether his 2014 resignation from the New York Police Department while the subject of a federal corruption investigation would hamper his credibility and ability to perform the job. Mr. Banks was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a wide-ranging corruption investigation that resulted in several convictions, including that of a Police Department chief who served as his top aide.
When he left the force, Mr. Banks had been chief of department, the highest-ranking uniformed position, and was about to become first deputy to William J. Bratton, then the incoming police commissioner.
The method of the announcement came in sharp contrast to Mr. Adams’s efforts to showcase the selection of his five other deputy mayors, all women: On Dec. 20, he held a news conference at Brooklyn Borough Hall where the new appointees were present.
The selection of Mr. Banks, 59, also illustrated how serving in the Adams administration can be a bit of a family affair. Mr. Banks’s brother, David C. Banks, is the mayor’s new schools chancellor; Sheena Wright, the chancellor’s partner, is deputy mayor for strategic operations.
Advertisement