The wife of a top NYPD official close to Mayor Eric Adams is quietly pocketing a six-figure salary in a newly created position she was appointed to nearly two years ago, the Post has learned.
Jasmine Sheppard was appointed to the position of “director of communications strategy” at the Ministry of Youth and Community Development, at a salary of $180,000 per year, in November 2022, according to financial disclosure forms recently filed by her husband.
City Hall never publicly announced the new position, or Sheppard’s appointment to it.
No job description or job postings could be found online.
According to the DYCD organizational chart, the communications strategy manager manages the department’s public information officer.
Sheppard previously worked in corporate communications at the United States Tennis Association, with her name appearing on a dozen press releases for the group between 2010 and 2020, when she appears to have left her role.
She has also served as a “Voice of God” by helping co-organize the annual fundraising gala for the nonprofit Trey Whitfield Foundation, which promotes equal access to educational opportunities for young people, since 2004.
Her husband, Tarik Sheppard, who was part of Adams’ inner circle along with other NYPD bigwigs, was named the police department’s deputy commissioner of public information last August, a role that comes with a salary of about $240,000 a year.
The position Sheppard held, an associate commissioner, did not previously exist within the department before she was hired, according to a Post review of records from the DYCD and the Conflict of Interest Board, which publishes an annual list of public sector employees with “substantial policy discretion.”
Michael Deutsch previously served as chief information officer, as well as associate commissioner, and left just before Sheppard was hired, but his role was responsible for data and IT management and initiatives, according to his LinkedIn.
A DYCD representative did not respond to questions about the role of the communications strategy director. The city hall did not respond to a request for comment.
Reached by phone Monday, Sheppard denied that the position was created for his wife and said she “applied for a position that someone had left vacant.”
“The funny thing is, you guys are always writing stuff and your screening process is really weak and we keep showing it. I don’t care what you write and neither does she,” he said before hanging up.
Since Adams took office, Sheppard has risen through the ranks of the NYPD, going from captain to deputy inspector to assistant commissioner in just over 18 months.
This is not the first prominent person in Adams’ circle to land a high-paying position in his administration.
Shortly after the mayor’s brother, Bernard Adams, took a $1-a-year job as the mayor’s security chief, his wife, Sharon Adams, was hired as a “strategic initiatives specialist” in the education department at a salary of $150,000, the nonprofit news organization The City reported last year.
