Former Interim NYPD Commissioner Tom Donlon filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit against Mayor Eric Adams on Monday, alleging that the mayor and others spread false claims about his mental acuity. A former FBI agent originally from the Bronx, Donlon briefly took the job as the city’s top cop in September 2024 after Edward Caban resigned from the position amid a federal corruption investigation into the Adams administration. Donlon’s temporary post ended two months later when Eric Adams appointed Jessica Tisch to be the next police commissioner.
Donlon’s defamation suit comes less than a week after he filed a separate suit against Adams and NYPD top brass, alleging a broad range of malfeasance and inept practices as part of a “corrupt enterprise.” Among other things, the suit alleges that former department top spokesperson Tarik Sheppard improperly used Donlon’s rubber signature stamp to promote himself to a three-star chief. In the document, Donlon claims that when he confronted Sheppard on the matter at the New York City Marathon in November, Sheppard told him: “I will f***ing kill you.” The corruption suit also alleges that Donlon found sloppy practices for logging and storing evidence, despite calls for reform after a 2022 fire that destroyed decades of evidence.
“This lawsuit is not a personal grievance,” Donlon said in a statement about the lawsuit at the time, adding that “the goal is to drive real change, hold the corrupt, deceitful and abusively powerful accountable, and restore the voice of every honorable officer who has been silenced or denied justice.”
Donlon’s defamation suit comes in response to how Eric Adams and other public officials reacted to his initial legal claim. He alleges that the mayor told members of a nonprofit business advocacy group that Donlon had been let go because he was “rapidly deteriorating mentally,” at one of the group’s meetings, according to an attendee. Sheppard also made similar claims, telling reporters that the former interim commissioner was “going through some cognitive issues” and that he believed that “there was this conspiracy against him.” Sheppard is also named in Donlon’s defamation claim, and has denied the allegations. He left the department in May.
Donlon’s attorney, John Scola, said that the comments from Adams and Sheppard amounted to “character assassination” and were meant to “weaponize mental health to silence a whistleblower.” A spokesperson for the mayor called Donlon’s claims a “frivolous attempt to seek compensation at the taxpayers’ expense after Mr. Donlon was rightfully removed from the role of interim police commissioner.”
