The corruption probe sending shock waves through the top brass of the NYPD has also reignited the glowing embers of animosity between Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and former top cop Raymond Kelly.
Bratton said Thursday that an investigation by the Internal Affairs Bureau was initiated at the end of 2013, under his predecessor’s watch.
A high-ranking law enforcement source told the Daily News that the investigation, which has circled around former Chief of Department Phillip Banks, was underway prior to Bratton accepting Mayor de Blasio’s invite to come back to New York.
“Immediately upon appointment as police commissioner, I was made aware of ongoing investigations,” Bratton said Thursday. “This investigation, our investigation, had been underway for a very short period of time.”
Four senior police officials have been reassigned amid the probe, Bratton said.
Others said the allegations against Banks were politically motivated.
In the days after taking the post Bratton was told of the probe. He later learned of an ongoing FBI and Department of Justice investigation in early 2014. A law enforcement source told The News that Bratton moved Banks to first deputy commissioner in an effort to strip him of his power as chief of department, the highest ranking uniformed cop on the force.
Banks’ resignation, only days after the promotion was announced, appeared to embody the friction between the leftovers from Kelly’s regime and Bratton’s new crew.
The two top cops have locked horns several times since Bratton’s 2014 return, including a spat over stop and frisk and a heated exchange over a comment Kelly made insinuating Bratton had fudged crime stats.
The FBI probe into whether Banks and other brass accepted splashy gifts and trips from Brooklyn businessmen, began with an investigation into Norman Seabrook, the powerful boss of the city correction officers union, multiple sources said.
“I’m trying to give Banks the benefit of the doubt, but his association with Seabrook doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy,” a police source said.
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