The New York City Police Department, otherwise known as the NYPD, is under a flurry of investigations due to suspicious amounts of hours being reported as overtime and an unimaginable amount of added income. In a series of interesting developments, Lieutenant Quatisha Epps has exposed the department for what may be one of its biggest abuses of power.
On December 18, 2024, The New York Post reported that Epps, who also happened to be the department’s highest paid employee, had resigned with an investigation underway.
“Investigators were probing allegations she falsified overtime hours and signed off on the time slips herself — as well as complaints over her coming into work late, leaving early or not showing up at all, the sources said,” Larry Celona, Tina Moore, and Matt Troutman reported. The lieutenant had managed to rake in $400,000 worth of income this year, surpassing even her boss. During her tenure at the NYPD, her job did not previously require her to patrol New York City. However, just prior to her resignation, a change in arrangement reassigned her to that role. Some officers have speculated that was what made her decide to resign.
Just 3 days later, though, her now former NYPD chief was pulled into the controversy. Epps, described as Chief “[Jeffrey] Maddrey’s personnel manager” by the New York Post, “filed an explosive Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint accusing Maddrey of giving Epps overtime shifts in exchange for sex,” Moore reported. From Epp’s testimonies, the exchanges were sometimes nonconsensual.
Although she had claimed to have accepted certain prior requests due to her economic situation at the time, Maddrey started to appear to Epps as a “predator.”. Some “favors” included filming pornographic content for Maddrey, having sex in his office at the station, and running another female officer’s errands as dictated by Maddrey. In response to these allegations, Maddrey resigned and was replaced with the new police chief John Chell, causing an entire reorganization of the department.
Maddrey has not had a good track record, as he has been known to have been in atypical and messy situations regarding “love”, as he had been previously shot in Staten Island getting caught up in a love triangle.
“Police alleged that [a man after an argument with Maddrey] fired 14 shots, striking Maddrey in the left wrist,” Scott R. Axelrod of the Staten Island Advance reported. Epps alleged that he also participated in complicated relationships during her time at the station, and had 2 mistresses at the same time while being married. During these affairs, Epps was coerced into helping him make sure that the truth was not discovered. Furthermore, Maddrey forced Epps to “gift” him money despite being aware of her unfortunate economic situation.
These striking claims have been confirmed by the former chief himself.
“‘Me and Lieutenant Epps worked together starting in early 2022. We were together for about a year and a half….One thing led to another. We had an office fling, and that’s all it was, it was an office fling,’ said Maddrey,” David Ushery, Jake Offenhartz, and Michael R. Sisak of NBC New York noted. Maddrey consistently denied wrongdoing in distributing undeserved overtime, merely packaging the situation as misjudging the relationship on his part.
In response to this concerning case, the department has initiated a deep examination of itself, especially its Internals Affair Bureau. This administrative purge led by Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, as well as the reassignments of officers within the bureau indicate the department’s commitment to fixing the issue.
This incident also added more anger towards the infamous former mayor Eric Adams, as it has been revealed that he had consistently helped Maddrey from facing consequences of his past actions.
“Adams appointed Maddrey as chief of department despite a prior allegation that Maddrey got in a physical tussle with an underling he was having an affair with in late 2015 and lied to the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau about it,” Yoav Gonen of The City wrote.
Epps’ lawyer, Eric Sanders, does not indicate that he and his client would give up pursuing the case even though Maddrey denied what Epps claimed to have transpired. In fact, it seems like they will pursue it even further with a greater degree of intensity. In a statement on the Sanders law firm’s website, the firm that Epps has hired, Sanders stated there was enough evidence to prove his guilt.
“Maddrey’s admissions, the extensive evidence we have collected, and the digital trail left behind will hold him accountable,” he wrote. “Unfortunately for Maddrey, he could not isolate Epps in his office or outside in a park to physically overpower her and delete the digital evidence on her mobile device as he did to others.”
On January 2, 2025, Maddrey was subjected to a search warrant in which government officials searched his home.
As this case heads closer to the courts, one may only hope that the truth will be revealed and justice be served.
