Former New York City police union president Ed Mullins is expected to be charged Wednesday in connection with a raid last year on his home and union office, according to multiple police sources.
Mullins resigned in October as head of the Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA) and retired from the NYPD in November following the raids.
The FBI confirmed that Mullins was in custody as of midmorning Wednesday.
However, the nature and timing of the charges aren’t immediately clear.
The union did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
At the time of the raid, the union’s executive board said in a letter to SBA members that “the nature and scope of this criminal investigation has yet to be determined.”
“However, it is clear that President Mullins is apparently the target of the federal investigation. We have no reason to believe that any other member of the SBA is involved or targeted in this matter,” the board said in the message.
The Sergeants Benevolent Association represents about 13,000 active and retired NYPD sergeants and controls a $264 million retirement fund.
Mullins is a controversial figure in New York City, notorious for his clashes with police and city leaders and sparking outrage with his incendiary tweets.
His tweets have included calling a City Council member a “first class whore” and calling a former health commissioner a “b—-.”
In another tweet speaking on the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown, a Black teenager, and the protests that followed, Mullins wrote: “Ferguson, Missouri was a lie and a nation of police have been under attack ever since.”
Last year’s raids came after an NYPD internal trial against Mullins for a slew of administrative charges, including for tweeting the arrest record for then Mayor Bill De Blasio’s daughter. He was found guilty and docked 70 vacation days in that case.
Mullins was elected to president of the SBA in 2002. Under his leadership, the union successfully negotiated contracts with the city that resulted in 40 percent wage increases. He joined the NYPD in 1982, according to his official biography.
He was also an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump and has made brash comments on several conservative news outlets.
Despite running the union full-time, he was allowed to retain his sergeant position and salaries from the union and police department under city law. In total in 2020, he raked in more than $220,000 between the two, per public records.
Corky Siemaszko contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
