Chief With Fingerprints At Many Crime Scenes

In the 3½ years since he stepped down as the NYPD’s Chief of Department, ostensibly because he considered a transfer from that position to First Deputy Commissioner a negative shift, Philip Banks III has increasingly seemed like The Teflon Cop, the man who got away as those with close ties to him were implicated in multiple scandals.

He was on vacation with his close friend Norman Seabrook in the Dominican Republic, along with Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg, in December 2013 when the longtime president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association allegedly declared, “It’s time that Norman Seabrook got paid.” According to Federal prosecutors, that set in motion the transaction under which Mr. Seabrook invested $20 million of his union’s money in a hedge fund run by an associate of Mr. Rechnitz in return for a $60,000 bribe.