Shamel Kelly, the former Brooklyn bar owner and whistleblower on an alleged NYPD corruption ring, had one question Tuesday as his legal team announced plans to sue the city.
“How deep does it go?”
The “it” refers to the scandal involving the twin brother of former Police Commissioner Edward Caban. James Caban allegedly shook down Kelly, whose Juice and Moore Bar in Coney Island had been subjected to police raids on a near-weekly basis.
“I was visited over, I would say, a six-month span, every week, on Thursday, Fridays, and Saturdays when I was open,” Kelly told reporters outside City Hall on Oct. 1. “I knew something was off because our establishment never had issues. We never had any fights, we never had any crimes — anything going in my space, and it was just excessive police force.”
Kelly alleges that Ray Martin, former associate director for Mayor Eric Adams’ Office of Entertainment and Nightlife, told him the frequent raids from the 60th Precinct would disappear if he paid James Caban a fee. Both Martin and Edward Caban have since resigned since news of the scandal broke.
Kelly, alongside his attorneys during the press conference, told reporters that he was cooperating with federal investigators, has shared video material with them, and wants to see how far up the food chain the commands went and if they touched too city officials like the mayor — who was indicted last week on unrelated bribery and corruption charges.
Civil rights attorney Harry Daniels is representing Kelly. He said he’s looking to answer Kelly’s question of how far the alleged scheme involving the former commissioner’s brother went at the NYPD and potentially at City Hall.
“Make no mistake about it, I would have brought a lawsuit today, but it goes so deep, so deep that we have to continue to do our investigation and continue to dig and find out how deep it goes. Every time we get ready to bring a suit, we find out something else,” Daniels said. “We want to get all the actors, all the people, the corrupt people, involved in this suit.”
Kelly said he plans on taking the city to task with legal proceedings after he says he was forced to shutter his business from the alleged harassment. His legal team provided videos that showed an army of police officers entering the business, shutting it down on several occasions, and even making arrests. Kelly said he was left to feel unsafe but still refused to pay up.
“I felt like I was being extorted,” Kelly said. “I started to lose a lot of funds due to the excessive harassment. No one wanted to really come to my establishment like that anymore, and it just got dangerous with me at that point.”
Attorney Bernarda Villalon, who is also representing Kelly, accused cops of performing illegal searches and seizures through a mob-like shakedown all to pocket some cash, calling it a pay-to-play operation.
“He encountered so much harassment, illegal searches, and it only ramped up more when Mr. Kelly refused to pay the $2,500 to Mr. Caban,” Villalon said. “It got so bad to the point that Mr. Kelly was forced to close down that very business that he worked so hard to open, leaving him with no business.”
James Caban’s legal representatives, however, state that their client denies the allegations and any wrongdoing.
“Mr. Caban unequivocally denies any wrongdoing. His work – as a consultant and acting as a liaison between the Department and a private company – is perfectly legal, especially given his previous career as a NYPD officer,” Sean Hecker and David Patton, partners at Hecker Fink LLP and counsel for James Caban said.
NYPD declined to provide comment on this story, instead referring amNewYork Metro to the US Attorney’s office.
