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Former Cop Union Boss Who Shared Racist Video Stole $600K From Cop Union

Edward Mullins pleaded guilty in federal court to defrauding the NYPD sergeants' union on Thursday.
ed mullins nypd union leader, leaves courthouse after charged with wire fraud
Ed Mullins (right) leaves the courthouse after being charged with wire fraud in 2022. Image Credit: Alexi Rosenfeld via Getty Images

The former president of the NYPD sergeants’ union pleaded guilty on Thursday to wire fraud for stealing over $600,000 from the union’s funds. 

Edward Mullins, who served as the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA) from 2002 to 2021, filed inflated expense reports to the union, requesting reimbursement for personal purchases and asking for more money back than the purchase’s price, according to a press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York. 

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“Beginning in 2017, Mullins devised a scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the SBA,” the press release states. “Mullins used his personal credit card to pay for meals at high-end restaurants and to purchase luxury personal items, among other things, and then submitted false and inflated expense reports to the SBA, representing that his charges were legitimate SBA expenditures when in fact they were not.” 

“Mullins also inflated the costs of his meals—whether SBA-related or not,” the release continues. “For example, if the actual cost of a meal was $522.55, Mullins would seek reimbursement from the SBA for $822.55 and pocket the difference. Mullins would also take personal expenses like supermarket bills and claim them on his expense reports as SBA-related meals for which he also sought reimbursement.” 

Mullins’ grossly overstated expense reports were then paid for by the SBA’s Contingent Fund, which the union’s around 13,000 members fund with annual dues. 

The SBA did not respond to a request for comment. 

Mullins, 61, was widely considered a controversial figure in New York City during his tenure at the SBA. He, among other police union chiefs, proudly endorsed Donald Trump in the 2020 election. He was docked $32,000 worth of vacation days for using slurs in offensive tweets against city officials and leaking former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s daughter’s arrest records. He also shared a 15-minute video calling Black people “monsters” with thousands of fellow officers, writing in an email that it was “the best video [he’d] ever seen telling the public the absolute truth.” For this, he has since apologized multiple times. 

Mullins was asked to resign from his position by the SBA Executive Board in October 2021, after the FBI searched his offices and his home in Port Washington, New York. At the time, the scope of the federal investigation was unclear, but the board determined that due to the severity of the situation, it would be best for him to step down, according to a message sent to members. He was charged in February 2022 with one count of wire fraud.

When asked for comment, a spokesperson for the NYPD’s communications office wrote, “He retired from the Department in 2021.”

Mullins pleaded guilty before District Judge John G. Koeltl, and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 25. He has already agreed to forfeit $600,000 to the U.S. government as part of his plea agreement, to make up for the money he stole from the union—the maximum possible sentence he could receive is 20 years in prison. 

“Edward Mullins promised to look out for the thousands of hard-working NYPD Sergeants who are members of the SBA,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, who oversaw Mullins’ case, said in a statement on Thursday. “Instead, as admitted today in federal court, he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from them to fund his lavish lifestyle. Thanks to the hard work of the FBI, Mullins’s betrayal has been exposed, and he now faces jail time and significant financial penalties.”