Port resident Mullins sentenced to prison

BY BRANDON DUFFY

Edward Mullins, the former head of the NYPD’s Sergeants Benevolent Association and a Port Washington resident, was sentenced to two years in prison Thursday for stealing $600,000 from the organization.

Mullins, who was first elected in 2002, was charged with wire fraud in February 2022 and pleaded guilty earlier this year, admitting his involvement in a scheme to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars from the association by submitting falsified expense reports.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Mullins stole from the pockets of the NYPD sergeants he vowed to protect and represent.

“Behind the scenes, Mullins stole from the SBA and its members, treating the SBA as his personal piggy bank,” Williams said in a statement. “In doing so, Mullins disgraced his uniform, broke the law, and undermined the public’s trust in law enforcement. As today’s sentence demonstrates, no one — not even highranking union bosses — is above the law.”

Mullins said Thursday he is “a shell of the man he used to be” and must surrender to the Federal Bureau of Prison by Nov. 10, The New York Times reported.

“Life has completely crashed around me, and given me much time to think,” The New York Times reported.

Around September 2017, officials said, Mullins defrauded the association by using his personal credit card to pay for various luxury items and meals at high-end restaurants before submitting the inflated expense reports for reimbursement.

In one instance, officials said, Mullins submitted an expense report to the association’s treasurer for a $3,000 meal at a Manhattan res- taurant, when the meal had no relevance to police work. Mullins also rarely included receipts when seeking reimbursements, according to officials.

Mullins was ultimately reimbursed for more than $1 million, a majority of which was fraudulently obtained, officials said.

Mullins earned more than $220,000 from his job at the NYPD in 2020, according to public data. The Sergeants Benevolent Association manages a $264 million retirement fund and its 13,000 members make it the fifth-largest police union in the nation, according to the group’s website.

Mullins, who served as a member of the NYPD since 1982, had his Port Washington home and the union’s Manhattan office raided by FBI agents in September 2021.

Mullins resigned shortly after the raids.