Edward Mullins, Former President Of NYPD Sergeants’ Union, Sentenced To Two Years In Prison For Stealing Union Funds

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that EDWARD MULLINS, the former President of the Sergeants Benevolent Association (“SBA”), the union that represents all current and former sergeants of the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”), was sentenced to two years in prison in connection with a scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the SBA through the submission of fraudulent expense reports. MULLINS pled guilty on January 19, 2023, before U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl, who imposed today’s sentence.  

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “For years, Edward Mullins abused his position as the head of the SBA to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the pockets of hard-working NYPD sergeants.  Mullins publicly vowed to protect the interests of the thousands of active and retired sergeants that he represented.  But behind the scenes, Mullins stole from the SBA and its members, treating the SBA as his personal piggy bank.  In doing so, Mullins disgraced his uniform, broke the law, and undermined the public’s trust in law enforcement.  As this sentence demonstrates, no one — not even high-ranking union bosses — is above the law.”

According to the Information filed in the case and other filings and statements made in court:

The SBA is the fifth-largest police union in the United States with its headquarters located in lower Manhattan.  The SBA’s membership consists of all active and retired sergeants of the NYPD with approximately 13,000 members.  From 2002 until October 2021, EDWARD MULLINS served as President of the SBA.

Beginning in 2017, MULLINS devised a scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the SBA.  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’s expense reports were fraudulent in at least three ways.  First, MULLINS routinely included meals on his expense reports that were not SBA-related.  Second, MULLINS routinely inflated the costs of his meals – whether SBA-related or not  – thereby taking more money from the SBA.  Third, MULLINS took certain expenses from his credit card statements, including clothing and supermarket expenses, and recategorized them as SBA-related meals, thereby obtaining even more money from the SBA.

MULLINS’s fraudulent expenses were paid through the SBA’s Contingent Fund, which was funded primarily through annual dues paid by SBA members.  In total, between 2017 and 2021, MULLINS stole at least $600,000 from the SBA through the filing of hundreds of fraudulent expense reports.

In addition to his prison term, MULLINS, 61, of Port Washington, New York, was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to make restitution to the SBA in the amount of $600,000.  MULLINS was also ordered to forfeit $600,000.

Mr. Williams praised the outstanding work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) and the FBI/NYPD Public Corruption Task Force.