Police Commissioner Edward Caban’s twin brother — a former cop with a checkered past — is being eyed by the feds over his alleged work as a “fixer” for swanky restaurants and nightclubs in Manhattan, sources said Friday.
Investigators are looking into a variety of “consulting” work James Caban, 56, apparently did for ritzy Big Apple hotspots, and allegations that he helped to smooth things over between the businesses and cops giving them trouble, police sources said.
“It wasn’t old-school Mafia, ‘If you don’t pay, we break your windows,’” one source said.
“But [it was], ‘My brother is a big shot, and he can make your fines and underage drinking go away.’”
Some of the restaurants and clubs Caban was involved with, the sources said, include the likes of Marquee and PhD, owned by the TAO Hospitality Group, and Creatures at Selina Rooftop in Chelsea, which has racked up 158 noise complaints over the last two years, public records show.
Caban was allegedly called when cops hit the hotspots with a noise citation or an underage drinking complaint, and he would then go to the local precinct heads — many of whom are also under investigation by the feds, according to the sources.
Bars and restaurants facing repeated violations could be hit with hefty fines or be stripped of their liquor license.
Sources have said Caban, his brother and others in the police department were targeted with raids on their homes and subpoenas Wednesday as part of a sweeping corruption probe involving influence peddling.
The investigation is being led by prosecutors from the Southern District of New York — who are also looking into top aides to Mayor Eric Adams and have mounted a separate investigation into his 2021 campaign funding, sources said.
Investigators are looking at police reports that involve Manhattan bars and restaurants — and parsing through emails from the NYPD brass, sources said.
They are probing whether the complaints were handled correctly — did the cops take reports? Were they written up to favor the establishment? according to the sources.
Sources said James Caban’s alleged involvement in the bars and restaurants dates back at least to when his brother was the first deputy commissioner under then-top cop Keechant Sewell, who suddenly resigned in July 2023 amid friction with Mayor Eric Adams’ administration.
One source claimed Caban was reportedly pitching his services to cops working concerts on Manhattan’s West Side, boasting of his influence in the NYPD with is brother set to soon take over as the top cop.
Neither James nor Edward responded to multiple inquiries Friday.
A man who answered the door at James’ million-dollar house in Rockland County’s New City pleasantly said no one would be willing to talk to the press.
The general manager at Selina’s admitted to having faced noise complaints over loud parties but said, “we’ve dealt with it ourselves.”
A PR rep for the TAO Hospitality Group did not comment.
An NYPD spokesperson said the department was “fully cooperating” with the investigation.
But they declined to comment further, instead directing questions to the US Attorney’s Office.
James and Edward Caban — neither of whom have been accused of wrongdoing — have another brother, Richard Caban, who runs a Bronx restaurant, Con Sofrito, that is popular with local politicians. There’s no indication he was targeted in the raids.
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It wasn’t clear whether James Caban did his alleged work under a company’s umbrella, or all on his own. It’s also not clear when he started, and how the businesses found out about him.
But for an often-troubled former police sergeant with a shady history, the seedy world of Big Apple bars seemed an appropriate landing spot.
He started with the NYPD in the summer of 1989, but was hit with a slew of complaints and allegations that eventually led to an early exit in January 2001, according to online records.
These included substantiated charges that he used excessive force and abused his authority two different times, in July and September of 1996.
Despite that, he rose to the rank of sergeant before the NYPD kicked him out in 2001 for wrongfully detaining and threatening a cabbie who he thought snuck money from his wife’s purse, according to City & State New York.
Later, he bought a Bronx apartment building — but was such an awful landlord that then-Public Advocate Bill de Blasio put him on a list of the city’s worst in August 2013, the outlet said.
Two months later, a judge threw him in jail for 30 days as punishment for failing to make hundreds of necessary repairs to his then-run-down, 12-unit building on Commonwealth Avenue, according to The Real Deal.
The housing court judge, Jerald Klein, said at the time that Caban had ignored every request by the city to fix the building’s 308 open property violations — and the city had already spent $115,000 to fix other emergency issues.
Caban argued that he was too broke to repair the building, which was one of the 200 most distressed structures in the city, according to the Daily News.
But he never proved it.
“If you neglect your property and your tenants, disregard your legal responsibilities, and defy court orders, we will seek the maximum penalties available under the law,” RuthAnne Visnauskas, then-commissioner of the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, told the News.
