Former Sergeant Association President Ed Mullins pleads not guilty to fraud

NEW YORK – A former New York City police union president who has faced city officials for insulting tweets and fighting behavior has been released on $ 250,000 bail Wednesday after pleading not guilty to stealing hundreds of thousands dollars from your union by filing an application. fake expense reports.

Ed Mullins, 60, of Port Washington, resigned in October as head of the Association of Charitable Sergeants after the FBI conducted a search of the union’s Manhattan office and his home on Long Island. He resigned from New York City Police in November, a month after he was changed to service and was forced to give up weapons and badges due to raids.

Requests for comment were left by New York City police and the union. The FBI declined to comment.

During the trial for Mullins, attorney Mark Mukasi said his client agreed with the prosecutor that he would have no contact with union members or his leadership on the fraud charge.

In the courtroom, Mukasei and Mullins declined to comment. Mullins, dressed in a suit, rushed past the reporters to the waiting car.

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The Charitable Sergeants Association represents about 13,000 active and retired NYPD sergeants and oversees a $ 264 million pension fund.

In a release, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Edward Mullins, a former SBA president, abused his position of trust and authority to fund a luxurious lifestyle that was paid for by the monthly contributions of thousands of hard-working sergeants. NYPD. Mullins submitted hundreds of false reports of expenses to further develop his scheme, stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the SBA. ”

The indictment alleges that Mullins cheated the union from 2017 to October 2021, using his personal credit card to pay for food at high-end restaurants and to purchase luxury personal items, and then filed false and overstated reimbursement claims with the union. Authorities said most of the costs Mullins demanded to reimburse, more than $ 1 million, were fraudulent claims.

Mullins, a police sergeant who was dismissed from his regular union work, was disciplined by the department for sending derogatory tweets about two city officials and for writing documents to New York police in 2020 about the arrest of the daughter of then-mayor Bill de Bill. protests against the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

As punishment, Mullins was forced to give up 70 days of leave, which amounted to almost 32 thousand dollars. In a previous offense, in 1987, he refused 25 days of leave for an incident outside the official position in which he hit one person and threw a bottle at another, police records show.

Mullins, a police officer since 1982, rose to sergeant, senior detective but below captain and lieutenant, in 1993 and was elected president of the sergeants union in 2002.

Under Mullins, the union fought for better wages – with contracts that led to a 40% increase in wages – and was prominent in the anti-reform movement.

Although he was the union’s full-time head, city law allowed Mullins to retain his position as a sergeant and receive salaries from both the union and the police department. In 2020, Mullins earned more than $ 220,000 between them, according to public figures: $ 88,757 from the union and $ 133,195 from the NYPD.

Along with Mullins ’periodic appearances on cable networks such as Fox News and Newsmax – including the one he was portrayed in front of a QAnon mug – perhaps the union’s most powerful megaphone is his Twitter account of 45,000 subscribers, which Mullins led himself, often for a fiery effect.

In 2018, amid a series of incidents in which police officers spilled water, Mullins suggested it was time for then-Commissioner James O’Neill and department head Terence Manahan to “consider another profession” and tweeted that O’Knill should go ! “

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O’Neill retorted that Mullins was a “little keyboard gangster” who rarely appeared on the function of the department.

Mullins came under fire and was subjected to police discipline for tweets in 2020, in which he called former city health commissioner Dr. Oxyris Barbot “b —-” and U.S. envoy Richie Torres “a first-class whore.”

Mullins was upset by reports that Barbat refused to hand over police masks in the early days of the pandemic and was angry with Torres ’calls to investigate a potential police slowdown in September 2020.

Torres, who is gay, condemned Mullins ’tweet as homophobic.

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