Executive Summary
For over a decade, the New York City Police Department has operated under a ballooning overtime budget that defied financial logic and internal accountability. Between FY2013 and FY2022, the City鈥檚 annual overtime spending surged by $760 million, with the NYPD alone overspending its uniformed overtime budget by an astonishing 93% in FY2022. During this same period, there were virtually no prosecutions, clawbacks, or internal disciplinary actions related to overtime fraud. Only one criminal case involving overtime abuse鈥擫ieutenant Thomas Fabrizi鈥攚as ever brought, and only after multiple internal warnings were ignored.
That silence ended abruptly in late 2024, following the appointment of NYPD “Savior” Jessica S. Tisch as Police Commissioner on November 20, 2024. Her arrival marked a shift in public messaging: from institutional silence to aggressive 鈥渞eform.鈥� Almost immediately, the department launched a campaign of clawbacks, disciplinary investigations, and media leaks鈥攁ll under the banner of fiscal integrity. But something didn鈥檛 add up. Despite thousands of officers racking up overtime each year鈥攕ome earning well into six figures above base salary鈥攐nly Black officers were publicly named, disciplined, or threatened with prosecution. Not a single white officer with similar overtime patterns faced clawbacks. Not one was leaked to the press. Not one was charged.
The racial disparity is glaring. Between July 2023 and October 2024, internal systems continued to approve and pay overtime claims without audit, UF-49s, or flags. In March 2024, top NYPD brass, including former Chief of Department Jeffrey B. Maddrey, Deputy Commissioner of Legal Michael Gerber, First Deputy Commissioner Tania I. Kinsella, and former Police Commissioner Edward A. Caban, testified under oath that biweekly overtime audits were in place. That testimony now appears misleading at best. It wasn鈥檛 until federal scrutiny intensified and Tisch took command that the department began clawing back wages, but only from a specific demographic: Black officers, many of whom had engaged in protected activity or were perceived as disloyal to departmental leadership.
This sudden 鈥渞eform鈥� campaign is not about preventing fraud. It is about protecting the department鈥檚 image by manufacturing a narrative of accountability鈥攐n the backs of its most expendable members. In reality, the NYPD鈥檚 overtime system is structurally flawed, managerially controlled, and legally the employer鈥檚 responsibility. Under both federal and state law, employers鈥攏ot employees鈥攂ear the burden of accurate timekeeping. Yet the department has inverted that legal duty, treating employees as criminals for participating in systems they did not design, could not override, and had no authority to approve.
The pattern is clear:
No accountability during white-led overspending.
No enforcement until external scrutiny loomed.
No white officers implicated.
Only Black officers were penalized.
The selective nature of these clawbacks is not just statistically improbable鈥攊t is constitutionally suspect. Title VII, 42 U.S.C. 搂 1983, the New York State Human Rights Law (NYSHRL), and the New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL) all prohibit disparate enforcement and retaliation. The racial uniformity of those targeted raises urgent questions about equal protection, retaliatory investigation, and selective discipline. This is not fiscal oversight. This is institutional scapegoating鈥攁 coordinated campaign to cleanse the public narrative of corruption by sacrificing Black officers while shielding white misconduct from view.
Commissioner Tisch鈥檚 rhetoric of 鈥渞estoring integrity鈥� cannot be divorced from this reality. Her tenure has been marked by high-profile public relations campaigns, symbolic firings, and silence on deeper structural issues鈥攆rom departmental leaks to whistleblower retaliation. In weaponizing fraud investigations without uniform standards, Tisch鈥檚 administration has transformed compliance into coercion and oversight into optics.
This blog will expose the anatomy of that deception. It will:
Deconstruct the employer鈥檚 legal obligations under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and New York Labor Law (NYLL).
Analyze the deliberate misuse of 鈥渇raud鈥� to criminalize payroll disputes rooted in managerial approval, while ignoring the exploitation of employee time and the systemic misappropriation of public funds for managerial gain, including inflated overtime authorizations, self-serving approvals, and discretionary assignments that benefit supervisors at the expense of rank-and-file workers.
Investigate the stark racial disparities in how enforcement is applied, revealing a pattern of selective discipline that targets Black officers while shielding white counterparts.
Highlight how media leaks, public shaming, and internal messaging are used not for accountability but to enforce silence, deter dissent, and protect those in power through intimidation.
And call for immediate intervention by federal monitors, civil rights enforcement agencies, and elected officials to restore lawful standards, racial equity, and fiscal integrity across the NYPD鈥檚 overtime and disciplinary systems.
This is not about overtime. It鈥檚 about overreach.
And it鈥檚 time to name it for what it is.
I. From Testimony to Targeting: The Collapse of the Oversight Narrative
On March 20, 2024, during a City Council budget , NYPD First Deputy Commissioner Tania I. Kinsella testified under oath that the department had implemented rigorous biweekly oversight protocols to monitor and control overtime spending. Seated beside her were then鈥揚olice Commissioner Edward A. Caban, Chief of Department Jeffrey B. Maddrey, Deputy Commissioner of Legal Matters Michael Gerber, Chief of Patrol John Chell, and other senior command staff. None of them challenged her testimony. None disclosed that the so-called oversight measures were inconsistently enforced, poorly documented, or altogether abandoned in practice.
Yet from July 2023 through October 2024鈥攖he very period Kinsella referenced鈥攐vertime was approved and paid across the department with no red flags, no UF-49s, and no audit findings. Among the hundreds of officers whose hours were processed through standard NYPD channels was former Lieutenant Quathisha Epps, who served in the Chief of Department鈥檚 Office. Her time entries were reviewed and approved without objection. Like others in her unit, she was explicitly instructed not to use CityTime, the department鈥檚 centralized timekeeping system. Instead, she logged her hours manually and submitted them through traditional command channels鈥攁 routine that had never before triggered disciplinary scrutiny.
That changed only after Epps engaged in protected activity. She rejected Chief Maddrey鈥檚 coercive sexual and financial overtures, internally reported misconduct, filed a formal EEOC complaint, and cooperated with outside investigators. Soon after, the same overtime that had been approved without issue was retroactively reclassified as improper. The NYPD issued a $231,896.75 clawback demand鈥攏ot based on contemporaneous audits or policy violations, but on vague claims of 鈥渕issing鈥� or 鈥渞eplaced鈥� slips. No UF-49s. No documentation. No sworn payroll declarations.
What followed was not accountability. It was retaliation鈥攁 strategic act of institutional reprisal cloaked in the language of fiscal oversight.
The department鈥檚 justification for the clawback collapses under both factual and legal scrutiny. According to Kenya Coger, a longtime NYPD payroll supervisor who testified on July 26, 2024, during a Departmental Trial involving former Lieutenant Joel Ramirez and Sergeant Jose Dume, documentation discrepancies and retroactive corrections are routine across the agency and typically resolved without adverse consequences. The recordkeeping norms applied to Epps鈥攎anual slips, manager sign-off, post-hoc corrections鈥攚ere neither unique nor out of bounds. What made her different wasn鈥檛 the process. It was the politics of her protected activity.
The legal foundation for the NYPD鈥檚 claim is equally infirm. Under 12 NYCRR 搂 142-2.6, the duty to maintain accurate payroll records belongs solely to the employer. And under Mid Hudson Pam Corp. v. Hartnett, 156 A.D.2d 818 (3d Dep鈥檛 1989), employers who fail in that duty cannot shift the burden of precision to employees. Courts are authorized to rely on estimates, testimony, and reconstructed evidence when records are incomplete, and to resolve all ambiguities against the employer who failed to preserve them.
In Epps鈥檚 case, the NYPD has produced no audit trail, no official finding of fraud, no disciplinary determination鈥攐nly a post hoc demand launched after she publicly named her abuser.
This wasn鈥檛 an isolated policy enforcement. It was a reputational takedown.
And Epps wasn鈥檛 chosen randomly.
The broader statistical context exposes the charade. Between FY2013 and FY2022, New York City鈥檚 overtime spending surged by $760 million, from $1.46 billion to $2.22 billion. The NYPD consumed the lion鈥檚 share. In FY2022 alone, the department overspent its uniformed overtime budget by 93%, and by FY2023, the City Comptroller projected the NYPD would exceed $740 million in overtime costs鈥攏early double the $374 million budgeted. If overtime irregularities were truly a matter of concern, one would expect audits, clawbacks, and discipline dating back years. Instead, not a single clawback was issued鈥攗ntil Epps. The department remained silent as thousands of officers benefited from flawed but tolerated systems. Only once a Black woman blew the whistle did those systems suddenly become problematic.
Commissioner Jessica Tisch鈥檚 appointment on November 20, 2024, gave bureaucratic cover to this campaign. Marketed as a reformer and technocrat, Tisch prioritized media messaging and symbolic enforcement over structural change. Under her leadership, fraud narratives emerged not through policy review but through targeted leaks and reputational scapegoating. Notably, every officer publicly identified in the 鈥渃rackdown鈥� has been Black. No white officer has faced clawbacks, internal charges, or leaked allegations for comparable conduct.
This is not a credible reform effort. It is an exercise in selective prosecution and racial discipline, designed to appease external scrutiny while protecting those who created and maintained the very systems now weaponized against Epps and others.
What collapsed in this moment was not merely the NYPD鈥檚 internal oversight.
It was the illusion that any of this was about fiscal integrity.
This is not about safeguarding public funds.
It is about sacrificing Black officers to shield institutional power.
II. Statistically Impossible: The Racial Pattern in NYPD Overtime Enforcement
In any institution as large and bureaucratically layered as the NYPD, genuine reform鈥攊f undertaken with integrity鈥攑roduces broad patterns of enforcement. Widespread systems failure yields widespread accountability. But when enforcement appears to land exclusively on the backs of a particular racial group鈥攄espite the system鈥檚 universal dysfunction鈥攚hat you are witnessing is not oversight. It is racial targeting.
The NYPD鈥檚 overtime system has long been understood as bloated, opaque, and loosely managed. For over a decade, overtime approvals were treated as discretionary currency鈥攇ranted by supervisors, processed with minimal scrutiny, and riddled with inconsistent recordkeeping. Between FY2013 and FY2022, New York City鈥檚 annual overtime spending ballooned by $760 million, from $1.46 billion to $2.22 billion. No city agency spent more than the NYPD. In FY2022 alone, the NYPD overspent its uniformed overtime budget by 93%. And by FY2023, the Comptroller projected that NYPD overtime costs would exceed $740 million, nearly double the budgeted amount.
These numbers aren鈥檛 outliers鈥攖hey鈥檙e institutional norms. Thousands of officers, particularly in elite commands and supervisory positions, have benefited from this lax regime year after year. Time was approved retroactively. Paper slips were routinely backdated. Supervisors and payroll officers signed off without cross-referencing logs, while high earners routinely topped six figures in overtime with little explanation. The culture of overpayment was not hidden鈥攊t was systemic. And yet, until late 2024, no clawbacks were issued. No fraud investigations launched. No officers disciplined.
Then, suddenly, clawbacks began. And every officer named or targeted has been Black.
This is not conjecture鈥攊t is a glaring pattern. In the wake of federal scrutiny and rising public pressure over whistleblower retaliation, the NYPD launched what it branded as an overtime crackdown. But rather than applying this scrutiny across the top 400 or even 100 overtime earners citywide, it focused narrowly and exclusively on a select few Black officers, most of whom had filed internal complaints, EEOC charges, or resisted internal coercion. Some were vocal about racial disparities. Some were connected to high-profile misconduct allegations. But all shared one thing in common: they were made into symbols, held up as examples of 鈥渁buse鈥� while their white counterparts remained protected by silence.
No white officers have been named.
No white officers have been leaked.
No white officers have been disciplined or sued for clawbacks.
Statistically, this is not merely improbable鈥攊t is functionally impossible.
Over ten years, with thousands of high-earning overtime recipients and hundreds of managerial sign-offs, it defies logic and basic probability that only Black officers committed overtime violations worthy of clawbacks or criminal suspicion. The only explanation that survives scrutiny is this: the 鈥渇raud鈥� narrative was never about the conduct鈥攊t was about the target.
Consider the case of , the only white officer publicly charged in a past overtime scandal. His prosecution occurred only after repeated internal warnings were ignored. Even then, the department did not pursue clawbacks or public shaming until compelled by external exposure. Fabrizi remains the sole white officer associated with overtime prosecution in over a decade. In contrast, the recent wave of clawbacks and leaks disproportionately targets Black officers, most of them mid-career, with long service histories, and no prior allegations of misconduct until they became inconvenient.
The racial disparity is not a footnote鈥攊t is the defining characteristic of NYPD鈥檚 so-called reform. And it directly contravenes both public sector ethics and anti-discrimination law.
Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the New York State Human Rights Law (NYSHRL), and the New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL), disparate treatment in disciplinary enforcement based on race constitutes unlawful discrimination. Moreover, 42 U.S.C. 搂 1983 bars state actors from engaging in selective enforcement that violates the Equal Protection Clause. When a department tolerates a decade of white-led excess, then pivots to punitive enforcement only against Black employees鈥攐ften after protected activity鈥攊t does not just create bad optics. It opens itself to civil liability.
These racial patterns are not coincidental. They are intentional design choices embedded in institutional culture. The NYPD did not accidentally overlook misconduct among white officers. It protected them. It still protects them. It has normalized their excess and publicly sacrificed their Black peers in a calculated attempt to project integrity.
There is a name for that: disparate enforcement.
And there is a remedy for that: federal oversight, civil rights litigation, and structural reform.
The numbers don鈥檛 lie鈥攂ut the narrative does.
And the selective application of 鈥渇iscal accountability鈥� makes that lie painfully clear.
III. Who Manages the Money? Employer Responsibility in Wage Systems
At the heart of every wage dispute lies a simple legal truth: the employer鈥攏ot the employee鈥攊s responsible for maintaining accurate records, preventing overpayment, and ensuring lawful compensation. This is not a gray area. It is black-letter law鈥攆ederal, state, and local.
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 搂 211(c), and 12 NYCRR 搂 142-2.6 of the New York Labor Law, the obligation to 鈥渕ake, keep, and preserve鈥� accurate records of hours worked and wages paid falls squarely on the employer. This includes tracking time, documenting approvals, retaining supporting documents, and ensuring system-wide consistency. It is a non-delegable duty that cannot be pushed downstream onto the worker, especially not in a public-sector bureaucracy where the employer controls every layer of payroll infrastructure.
And yet, in the NYPD, that responsibility is routinely inverted. Employees are blamed for payroll breakdowns they had no power to prevent, correct, or even fully understand.
The NYPD鈥檚 timekeeping architecture is a textbook example of institutional control. Supervisors assign shifts and approve overtime, while payroll staff process hours. Internal audit units hold exclusive access to backend logs. Many commands鈥攑articularly those in high-command bureaus like the Chief of Department鈥檚 Office鈥攕till rely on paper-based UF-28s, verbal approvals, and ad hoc practices that are never standardized across precincts. Electronic systems like CityTime are often bypassed entirely or limited to certain ranks and divisions.
In the case of Epps, for example, the directive to avoid CityTime came directly from Maddrey. Overtime was to be logged manually and submitted via standard command protocols. That system had been in place for years, never flagged, never questioned, and never subject to internal discipline. Only after Epps filed a sexual harassment complaint and began cooperating with outside investigators did the department start treating those routine payroll entries as suspicious.
This retroactive reinterpretation of approved timekeeping isn鈥檛 just retaliatory鈥攊t鈥檚 legally indefensible.
As the U.S. Supreme Court held in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680 (1946), when an employer fails to maintain accurate time records, the burden shifts. Workers may rely on reasonable inferences, memory, and patterns to establish what they are owed. The employer then bears the burden of rebutting those claims with reliable documentation. The Appellate Division affirmed this principle in Mid Hudson Pam Corp. v. Hartnett, 156 A.D.2d 818 (3d Dep鈥檛 1989), holding that employers 鈥渃annot complain that the damages lack the exactness and precision of measurement鈥� when they are the ones who failed to keep proper records in the first place.
The implication is clear: when the NYPD fails to audit, preserve, or reconcile payroll entries contemporaneously, it forfeits the right to retroactively accuse employees of fraud based on that same missing documentation.
Moreover, in labor law, intent matters. Fraud requires scienter鈥攌nowledge and intent to deceive. Employees following supervisor instructions, relying on longstanding norms, or submitting corrected entries at a manager鈥檚 request are not acting fraudulently. They are functioning within the system they were given.
But here lies the double standard.
When managerial timekeeping is sloppy, it鈥檚 called 鈥渁dministrative backlog.鈥� When a white supervisor over-approves OT, it鈥檚 a 鈥渟ystems glitch.鈥� But when a Black officer tries to reconstruct time鈥攐ften after the fact and under pressure鈥攊t becomes a 鈥渇raud investigation.鈥� That鈥檚 not oversight. That鈥檚 prosecutorial discretion twisted into institutional punishment.
Even more egregiously, while line officers are criminalized for what are often clerical inconsistencies or supervisor-approved entries, the NYPD continues to tolerate managerial practices that amount to the systemic misappropriation of public funds.
These include:
Inflated overtime authorizations signed without justification or operational necessity.
Discretionary shift assignments that favor loyalists and punish whistleblowers.
Self-serving approvals, where supervisors sign off on each other鈥檚 time, bypass scrutiny.
Selective audits are used to retaliate, rather than to ensure fairness.
In this way, the NYPD鈥檚 payroll culture doesn鈥檛 just fail the legal standard鈥攊t weaponizes its dysfunction.
The law says the employer must maintain control, and if that control fails, the employee cannot be scapegoated. But NYPD practice says otherwise: control when it benefits command, blame when it doesn鈥檛.
If the department truly believed in fiscal responsibility, it would start with top-down accountability: automated audits, enforced digital entry, supervisory restrictions, and standardized protocols across commands. Instead, it begins with leaks, clawbacks, and scapegoats鈥攁lmost always Black, and almost always in retaliation for speaking out.
It is not misconduct to participate in a flawed system.
It is misconduct to punish the worker for surviving it.
IV. Selective Scrutiny as an Institutional Pattern
In any legitimate system of internal accountability, scrutiny is based on conduct, not identity. It is guided by evidence, not retaliation. And it operates within transparent rules, not shifting political priorities. The NYPD, however, has demonstrated that scrutiny is neither universal nor neutral鈥攊t is discretionary, strategic, and highly racialized.
This selective enforcement is not theoretical. It is now well-documented and emerging as a repeatable institutional pattern鈥攁 playbook used to neutralize dissent, retaliate against protected activity, and redirect attention away from structural failures. The recent wave of overtime clawbacks is just the latest iteration.
At its core, this pattern depends on a dual tactic:
Overlooking misconduct until it becomes politically advantageous, and
Targeting disfavored employees when they become inconvenient.
We saw this unfold in Epps’s. For over a year, her overtime was approved, logged, and paid under NYPD鈥檚 own flawed鈥攂ut managerially sanctioned鈥� procedures. No anomalies were flagged. No audits triggered. Then, after she rejected Maddrey鈥檚 coercive behavior and filed informal complaints, her pay history was retroactively criminalized. 鈥淢issing鈥� slips suddenly became evidence of fraud. Records that had been standard across her command were now deemed irregular. The 鈥渁udit鈥� only began after she became a legal threat.
This is not an anomaly. This is聽a process of punishment.
And it鈥檚 not limited to Epps.
Across the NYPD, employees who file EEO complaints, cooperate with outside investigations, or speak out about internal misconduct are far more likely to face sudden performance scrutiny, unannounced audits, or targeted investigations. The department rarely flags payroll irregularities until the employee becomes adversarial. Once they do, their documentation is reexamined, their character called into question, and their name鈥攐ften anonymously鈥攆ed to the press.
Contrast this with employees who enjoy political insulation. White officers with excessive overtime, irregular entries, or even documented misconduct often escape internal scrutiny entirely. Their names never leak. Their records are never reinterpreted as criminal. Their payroll practices, however flawed, are treated as correctable, not corrupt.
This racial and retaliatory disparity is not just unethical鈥攊t鈥檚 unlawful.
Under federal law, retaliation includes any adverse action taken against an employee because they engaged in protected activity. That includes filing discrimination complaints, reporting misconduct, or cooperating in investigations. A post hoc audit, clawback, or disciplinary charge鈥攍aunched only after such activity鈥攊s legally suspect. When those actions disproportionately affect employees of color, particularly Black women, the case for selective enforcement under Title VII, the NYSHRL, the NYCHRL, and 搂 1983 Equal Protection Clause becomes overwhelming.
But the NYPD鈥檚 weaponization of scrutiny is not limited to overtime.
Similar tactics have been deployed through:
Psychological referrals used to stigmatize whistleblowers.
Selective performance monitoring targeting protected employees.
Internal leaks to discredit officers before they鈥檝e been charged or heard.
Fabricated time theft claims based on unverifiable or selectively enforced standards.
Post hoc reinterpretations of longstanding payroll or timekeeping practices occur once an officer is no longer in favor.
These tactics do not originate from policy鈥攖hey originate from power. And they expose the NYPD鈥檚 internal oversight infrastructure as more political than procedural. Rather than function as a neutral system of institutional integrity, oversight is deployed like a weapon鈥攁 mechanism of internal discipline dressed up as fiscal enforcement.
The consequences of this selective scrutiny are far-reaching:
Employees lose wages, careers, and reputations not because they committed fraud, but because they challenged authority.
Whistleblowers are silenced, not by rebutting their claims, but by destroying their credibility.
Public trust is eroded, as taxpayers witness the hollowing out of the very reforms they were promised.
More troubling still is the complicity of internal mechanisms鈥攊ncluding the Department Advocate鈥檚 Office, IAB, and Legal Bureau鈥攚hich fail to interrogate the selective nature of these investigations. By greenlighting retaliatory scrutiny under the false banner of fraud control, they enable institutional retaliation with the color of law.
This is not fiscal governance.
This is a culture of fear.
And unless it is dismantled, the NYPD will continue to use 鈥渟crutiny鈥� not as a tool of equity, but as a shield for power and a sword against those who threaten it.
V. Criminality as a Red Herring: Why Labor Disputes Are Not Fraud
In its ongoing 鈥渞eform鈥� campaign, the NYPD has embraced a dangerous distortion: framing payroll discrepancies as criminal fraud. This tactic is not just legally flawed鈥攊t is institutionally dishonest. Wage disagreements, documentation inconsistencies, and reconstructed time records are governed by civil labor law, not penal statutes. Yet in case after case, the department invokes the specter of fraud to discredit employees, obscure its failures, and reassert control over whistleblowers and dissenters.
This legal principle is worth repeating because it strikes at the heart of the NYPD鈥檚 entire fraud narrative. As discussed earlier, both federal and New York labor laws place the duty to maintain accurate payroll records squarely on the employer, not the employee. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 搂 211(c), and its New York counterpart, 12 NYCRR 搂 142-2.6, the employer must 鈥渕ake, keep, and preserve鈥� detailed records of time worked and wages paid. When an employer fails to meet that obligation, it cannot later accuse the employee of imprecision or wrongdoing.
This is not merely a procedural safeguard鈥攊t is a doctrinal safeguard. In Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680 (1946), the U.S. Supreme Court made clear that when the employer鈥檚 records are inadequate or missing, the employee鈥檚 reasonable estimate of hours worked is sufficient to shift the burden. The employer鈥攏ot the employee鈥攎ust then disprove that estimate. Likewise, in Mid Hudson Pam Corp. v. Hartnett, 156 A.D.2d 818 (3d Dep鈥檛 1989), New York鈥檚 courts reinforced that where records are missing, 鈥渢he employer cannot complain that the damages lack the exactness and precision of measurement.鈥�
This point cannot be overstated: you cannot fail to keep records and then accuse your employees of lying about what you failed to document. The NYPD鈥檚 attempt to criminalize discrepancies it was legally required to prevent is more than retaliatory鈥攊t鈥檚 a reversal of the law itself.
That is the legal foundation. But the NYPD has discarded it in favor of a retaliatory fiction鈥攖he claim that timekeeping irregularities reflect deception, not dysfunction.
Take the department鈥檚 $231,896.75 clawback against Epps. Her overtime was logged manually under direct instruction from Maddrey. She, like others in the Chief of Department鈥檚 Office, was told not to use CityTime. Supervisors approved her hours. Payroll processed the entries. No internal objection was raised during the 15 months during which her time was submitted and paid. It wasn鈥檛 until she filed an EEOC charge, disclosed sexual misconduct, and cooperated with outside investigators that her entries were reframed as 鈥渇raudulent.鈥�
This is not law enforcement. It is a post hoc punishment dressed in criminal clothing.
Moreover, it reflects a broader strategy鈥攖urning civil wage disputes into criminal suspicion as a way to silence protected activity. And it raises a more troubling question: since when are criminal investigators responsible for determining what constitutes 鈥渁ppropriate work鈥� in the workplace? Is reading emails fraud? Is helping a commanding officer off-hours a crime? Is logging hours spent on department business, at a supervisor鈥檚 request, now prosecutable if the officer is later deemed disloyal?
Such elasticity in enforcement is not only absurd鈥攊t is perilous.
Because while the NYPD targets rank-and-file officers, it continues to shield the real culprits behind payroll waste: management.
It is management that:
Establishes overtime codes and approval rules.
Determines what qualifies as 鈥渃reditable鈥� time.
Approves, signs, and transmits time records for payment.
Controls access to audit systems and paper trails.
And tolerates, or enables, the very documentation practices it later claims are 鈥渋rregular.鈥�
The misuse of taxpayer money is not the product of officer misconduct鈥攊t is the consequence of unchecked managerial discretion. Supervisors grant overtime with no operational justification. Commanding officers approve inflated hours to curry favor or maintain control. Units bypass digital systems to avoid scrutiny. And when those systems implode under external review, it is the officers鈥攅specially Black officers鈥攚ho are thrown under the bus.
Let us be clear: the responsibility for payroll fraud, overpayment, or financial waste lies with the employer鈥攗nless the employee no-shows, falsifies documentation, or knowingly submits for time not worked. That is not the case with Epps or others similarly targeted. These are not schemes. These are scapegoats.
If there is criminality here, it is not the submission of supervisor-approved time.
It is the manipulation of law enforcement powers to punish those who expose abuse.
By invoking fraud where the facts and law do not support it, the NYPD not only deflects blame鈥攊t creates a climate of retaliatory fear, where employees are chilled from correcting errors, asserting legal rights, or questioning internal policy.
This is the real fraud: the systematic misuse of criminal narratives to reframe labor law violations as misconduct, to protect power and punish disobedience.
Until the department stops disguising retaliation as oversight, and stops criminalizing its failures, there can be no serious claim to fiscal integrity鈥攐nly fear-based enforcement built on racial disparity and institutional self-preservation.
VI. Reform or Retaliation? The Tisch Doctrine of Discipline
When Mayor Eric Adams appointed NYPD “Savior” Jessica S. Tisch as Police Commissioner on November 20, 2024, her selection was framed as a technocratic answer to a political problem: spiraling overtime costs, rising public skepticism, and festering internal dissent. Heralded as a modernizer with a data-driven reputation from her prior posts at the Department of Information Technology and Department of Sanitation, Tisch arrived at One Police Plaza with a mandate to restore order鈥攆iscal, operational, and reputational.
But what followed was not reform. It was a recalibrated disciplinary regime, laser-focused on symbolism, not substance.
From her first months in office, Tisch positioned herself not as an institutional reformer but as an enforcer of internal obedience. Her brand of leadership married precision messaging with selective punishment. She did not address the structural flaws that allowed overtime to metastasize into a billion-dollar problem. She did not order a top-to-bottom review of outdated timekeeping infrastructure. She did not initiate disciplinary action against the supervisors and payroll officers who approved inflated hours across bureaus for years.
Instead, she made examples.
Rather than rein in systemic excess, Tisch presided over a campaign of targeted clawbacks, retroactive audits, and media leaks, all disproportionately aimed at Black officers, particularly those with whistleblower histories or strained relationships with the command structure. These actions were not accompanied by policy reform, operational restructuring, or systemic equity audits. They were rolled out as punitive enforcement and positioned to the public as 鈥渋ntegrity restoration.鈥�
This was not reform. This was retribution鈥攔ebranded as accountability.
What became known internally as 鈥渇iscal discipline鈥� quickly devolved into a management playbook of weaponized oversight:
Retroactive clawbacks without audit documentation;
Media leaks designed to shame rather than investigate;
Allegations of 鈥渇raud鈥� without due process, often long after pay was approved;
And internal silence about comparable overpayments to white officers who had never filed complaints or challenged departmental leadership.
The cumulative effect was chilling: a culture of fear, not compliance. Officers quietly questioned whether payroll practices they had followed for years鈥攁t their supervisor鈥檚 direction鈥攎ight now be used against them. Whistleblowers were put on notice that protected activity might be answered not with reform, but with clawbacks, smears, or worse. And the larger public was fed a carefully curated narrative: that Tisch had 鈥渃leaned house鈥� and protected taxpayer funds by going after rogue officers.
But the truth beneath the optics was stark. The actual systems鈥攖he fragmented timekeeping, lack of audit controls, arbitrary supervisor discretion, and managerial excess鈥攔emained untouched. The only thing Tisch streamlined was blame.
This selective purge revealed the essence of the Tisch Doctrine: discipline as theater. Instead of confronting the institutional causes of waste and corruption, Tisch cultivated an illusion of reform by criminalizing the conduct of those least empowered to design, approve, or profit from it.
The consequences are profound:
Structural problems go uncorrected while individuals are sacrificed;
Racial disparities deepen, as Black officers become the public face of 鈥渇raud鈥� while white managers continue unchecked;
Public trust erodes, not because reform is difficult, but because what is labeled reform is little more than retaliatory window dressing.
It is telling that under Tisch鈥檚 tenure, not a single white officer with high overtime earnings has been subject to a public clawback or leaked fraud allegation. Despite more than a decade of data showing systemic overuse of overtime by the same ranks and divisions, no comprehensive audit has been published. No uniform policy has been announced. No senior officials have been held responsible for approving, ignoring, or even encouraging discretionary payouts that ballooned departmental costs.
Because under Tisch, the real project is not payroll reform鈥攊t is institutional preservation.
This is not to suggest that overtime abuse should be ignored. It shouldn鈥檛. But accountability cannot be credible if it is applied surgically to the vulnerable and silently bypasses the powerful. When fiscal enforcement becomes indistinguishable from political discipline, the credibility of the entire enterprise collapses.
Reform, if it is real, does not start with clawbacks. It begins with transparency. It starts with auditing the auditors, not punishing the complainants. And it begins with acknowledging that discipline without equity is not justice鈥攊t is control.
Commissioner Tisch鈥檚 tenure will be remembered not for what it repaired, but for what it concealed. Despite her media-crafted reputation as a no-nonsense reformer, Tisch has arguably been the most ill-equipped and ineffective commissioner in the department鈥檚 modern history. She inherited a department in crisis鈥攆iscally, morally, and institutionally鈥攁nd was handed a mandate to lead. Instead, she chose the path of least resistance: blame those with the least power, shield those with the most, and present punitive retaliation as principled reform.
Presented with an opportunity to confront systemic payroll abuse, modernize oversight, and restore credibility to internal discipline, she built a framework of optics without substance鈥攑ress releases in place of policy, clawbacks instead of audits, and selective punishment as a stand-in for structural correction. Why? She knew she was woefully unqualified to lead a paramilitary agency of nearly 50,000 personnel, lacking the operational background, field experience, or internal legitimacy to drive reform from within.
Her appointment reflects a deeper rot: a political culture that treats public safety leadership as a patronage prize rather than a public trust. In New York City and across the country, unqualified political insiders are too often placed atop complex, high-stakes institutions鈥攎ore for their loyalty to the mayor than their competency to govern. What follows is predictable: performative leadership, public relations over public policy, and a leadership vacuum filled by bureaucracy, retaliation, and fear.
The consequences are not theoretical. They are playing out in courtrooms, disciplinary trials, and federal complaints from whistleblowers who have been scapegoated under Tisch鈥檚 regime. She may have inherited dysfunction, but she institutionalized fear鈥攁nd in doing so, she has become not a steward of reform, but a symbol of regression.
Reform requires more than headlines. It demands qualification, courage, and a commitment to equity, not control. Tisch has shown none of the above.
VII. Conclusion: Fiscal Discipline or Racial Disposability?
The NYPD claims to be cracking down on fraud. But what the public is witnessing is not a genuine audit of misconduct鈥攊t is a highly racialized purge, selectively enforced and legally indefensible. In a department that spent nearly $740 million in overtime in FY2023 alone, where discretionary approvals were granted with no meaningful oversight, it strains all credibility that only Black officers鈥攑articularly those who filed complaints or resisted corruption鈥攈ave been targeted for clawbacks, leaks, and discipline.
If fiscal discipline were truly the goal, we would see:
A top-down audit of managerial overtime authorizations;
Disciplinary action against supervisors who approved inflated or undocumented hours;
Transparent reporting of overpayment trends across all commands and ranks;
And equity in enforcement, not a racial pattern that conveniently spares white officers with identical or worse payroll histories.
Instead, what we see is a system of selective prosecution and institutional gaslighting, led by an administration more concerned with preserving its image than enforcing the law. The NYPD鈥檚 internal oversight bodies have abdicated their responsibility, allowing criminal terminology to be misapplied to civil wage disputes, often in retaliation for protected conduct. Employees who followed orders, complied with long-standing procedures, and acted in good faith are being cast as fraudsters, not because of what they did, but because of who they are and what they represent.
And this is not a matter of fiscal strategy. It is a crisis of governance.
We must stop pretending this is about missing slips or broken systems. It is about who gets protected鈥攁nd who gets sacrificed. It is about how public institutions retaliate against truth-tellers by reframing policy failures as personal misconduct. It is about the calculated use of 鈥渇raud鈥� as a disciplinary hammer, when the real theft is not the paycheck of a single officer, but the unaccountable discretion of a system built to protect itself.
Commissioner Tisch, rather than reforming this broken structure, has only accelerated its collapse. Her administration has weaponized enforcement tools to suppress dissent, chilled internal transparency, and normalized the erasure of racial equity concerns under the guise of fiscal responsibility. The clawbacks, the media leaks, the silence around white comparators鈥攁ll of it points to a department more invested in public theater than structural reform.
The message is unmistakable: If you are Black, if you speak up, if you resist, your time, your pay, and your name are expendable.
That is not fiscal discipline. That is racial disposability.
If New York City is serious about integrity, it must demand more than clawbacks and slogans. It must demand:
A full public accounting of NYPD overtime practices;
Independent audits disaggregated by race, rank, and assignment;
Stronger whistleblower protections;
And meaningful consequences for those in management who oversaw, enabled, and now obscure the truth.
Because until we expose the real fraud鈥攖he misuse of power to suppress accountability鈥攏o amount of clawbacks will make this department honest. Reform is not measured by who you punish. It鈥檚 measured by what you fix.
And right now, the only thing being fixed is the narrative.