Leonard Levitt

Bloomberg, Kelly Say NYPD Foiled 14 Terror Plots; Not So, Article Counters

For years, Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Ray Kelly have claimed that the NYPD has thwarted 14 terror attacks since 2001. And many people actually believed them. The problem is it's not really true. In fact, as the internet news site Propublica notes, "the figure overstates the number of serious, ... More >>

Ray Kelly, Police Commissioner, Has to Remind Cops to Take Criminal Complaints

More than a year after revelations in this newspaper and others media outlets about police under-reporting of crime complaints, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has taken the unusual step of actually reminding cops that they can't ignore civilians who want to report a crime. A department order issued ... More >>

100 Most Powerless New Yorkers

A 'power list' for the rest of us

Queens DA Taking a Look At How NYPD Whistleblower Wound Up in Psych Ward [Update]

​It looks like Queens District Attorney Richard Brown is taking renewed interest at the events surrounding how the NYPD wound up forcing Officer Adrian Schoolcraft into the Jamaica Hospital psychiatric ward for six days back in late 2009. Last week, Leonard Levitt, who writes an internet col ... More >>

FOIL'd Again: Why Doesn't the NYPD Want You to Know Anything?

It was hard to feign much surprise last month when the New York Times slapped New York's finest with a lawsuit, accusing the department of habitually withholding information and flouting government transparency laws. In fact, as any reporter would certainly know, one of the city's toughest agencies ... More >>

Ray Kelly's Publicity Piggy Bank: The Police Foundation

​In what is a fairly shocking disclosure, Leonard Levitt's NYPD Confidential reports today that the Police Foundation has spent $400,000 on a publicist who spent most of his time flacking for Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and introducing him to celebrities and rich folks and get onto that red ... More >>

Ray Kelly's Harvard Club Membership Fees, Food Paid by Non-Profit Police Foundation (Updated)

​Police Commissioner Ray Kelly gets his annual $1,500 membership dues at the fancy Harvard Club paid for by the non-profit Police Foundation, Leonard Levitt's blog One Police Plaza Confidential is reporting. That alone is fairly controversial because regular street cops, as Levitt notes, aren ... More >>

"NYPD Confidential" Offers Its Take on the Voice's "NYPD Tapes" Series

​Leonard Levitt, the highly regarded police reporter who writes the internet column "NYPD Confidential," offers his own take on the Police Department's handling of the case of Adrian Schoolcraft, the police officer who tried to report corruption and paid for it with a six-day stint in a mental ... More >>

NYPD Gang Cops Get Serious About Gangs -- In Bermuda

​Talk about a cushy assignment! It would appear that the NYPD has agreed to send gang intelligence investigators to the lavish resort island of Bermuda to help out the cops there. Who arranged this posh retreat? Why, according to Bermuda's paper of record, it was Mayor Michael Bloomberg h ... More >>

Bernie Madoff's 'Bail Baby-Sitter' Nick Casale Has His Own Colorful Past

Escort service: Madoff and his nanny, ex-cop Nick Casale.A recent story in the Times about bail baby-sitters for high-profile and rich alleged criminals zoomed in on former NYPD detective Nick Casale, the state-sanctioned nanny who monitored Bernie Madoff's bail and made sure the fraudster made it ... More >>

'NYPD Confidential' Tells Tales of Bernie Kerik

​The latest and most detailed recounting of the epic New York City police disaster known as Bernie Kerik is in Leonard Levitt's fascinating new tell-all history, NYPD Confidential. Levitt, who wrote a column for Newsday that now runs on the Web, tells of sitting at his desk in One Police Plaz ... More >>

Ray Kelly's Social Life? Fabulous, Darling!

Nat Hentoff's Recommended Reading

Commish Kelly Gets Own Chauffeurgate?

Inspector Flees Shooting Scene

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's Discipline Dilemma

Lost and Found

Soldier, jailer, hero, myth: the rise and fall of Bernard Kerik

Kerik: Yet Another Bad Trip

Deconstructing Diallo's Death