By Jonathan Dienst, Tom Winter and Corky Siemaszko -
NBC News
The FBI stormed the Manhattan offices of a New York City police union on Tuesday, and hours later the union leader resigned.
With a warrant, officers searched the headquarters of the nation's fifth largest police union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA), which represents 13,000 active and retired New York police sergeants.
[A restaurant employee in New York is attacked for asking Texan customers for proof of vaccination against COVID-19]
Simultaneously, FBI agents searched a home in the Long Island suburb of Port Washington that belongs to Ed Mullins, the union's director since 2002, according to an agency spokesman.
In a letter to SBA members, which was obtained by NBC News, the sister network of Noticias Telemundo, the union's executive board asked Mullins to resign and he accepted.
“The nature and scope of this criminal investigation have yet to be determined.
However, it is clear that President Mullins is apparently the target of the federal investigation.
We have no reason to believe that any other SBA member is implicated or the target of this matter, ”the board noted in the message.
FBI investigates police dog attack on black man in Missouri
Sept.
27, 202102: 10
FBI Joins 60 Detectives Investigating the Miya Marcano Case in Multiple Florida Counties
Sept.
30, 202102: 16
The union promised its full cooperation and recalled that Mullins has a right to the presumption of innocence, but that the union's work is too important for the investigation to be a distraction.
It was unclear why the FBI was targeting the SBA and the Mullins home.
The agency spokesman told the New York Daily News that they were "conducting police action in connection with an ongoing investigation."
[Vaccination mandate for teachers and school personnel enters into force in New York]
Members of the public corruption unit of the New York Southern District Attorney's Office were also involved in the raid, The New York Times reported.
Around one in the afternoon, the pair of agents carrying large brown cardboard boxes were seen leaving the union headquarters and walking towards the FBI base in lower Manhattan.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said he was aware of the FBI raid, but said nothing about the surprise raid at the SBA.
The son of a dockworker, Mullins, who grew up in Greenwich Village, has frequently clashed with police leaders and de Blasio.
Among her acidic posts on Twitter, she has called a member of the City Council a "first-class whore."
In response to the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown, a black teenager, by an officer and subsequent protests, he said: "Ferguson, Missouri was a lie and a nation of police officers has been under attack ever since."
[FBI Releases Declassified Document Confirming 9/11 Attackers Had Ties To Saudi Arabia]
Mullins remains a strong supporter of former President Donald Trump.
SBA statutes require that Mullins continue to serve as a police sergeant.
The records show that he is not assigned to a specific position.
And although the city paid him $ 133,195 last year, his full-time job was running the SBA, which pays him an additional salary.
The union paid Mullins $ 88,757 in 2019, according to the most recent SBA documentation, which listed him as a trustee.