NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York City Mayor Eric Adams has reassigned his younger brother to a job overseeing his physical security, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, days after naming him deputy police commissioner of the largest U.S. police department.
Bernard Adams, a retired police sergeant of the New York Police Department, will serve as executive director of mayoral security, a job with a typical salary of $210,000, the Times reported. He was most recently a parking administrator at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, it added.
The 56-year-old could have made $240,000 as an NYPD deputy commissioner. The security director role falls within the structure of the department, from which he retired after two decades on the force, the Times said.
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The hiring will require a waiver from the Conflicts of Interest Board, the city agency tasked with enforcing government ethics.
Mayor Adams, a former police captain who took office on Jan. 1, on Sunday fended off concerns of nepotism, saying his office had started the process to clear his brother’s appointment with the ethics board.
He said a rise in anarchy and issues of white supremacy in the country required that his security operations be “extremely unique” as he plans to travel by subway and stay in the public eye.
“My brother knows me. My brother, I trust him. He’s a 20-year veteran. He was an extremely successful community affairs police officer,” he said. “If I have to put my life in someone’s hand, I want to put it in the hand of a person I trust deeply because that is a very personal process of your security.”
(Reporting by Tyler Clifford; Editing by Mary Milliken and Richard Chang)
