Department of Investigation searches New York City Sheriff’s Office

The city Department of Investigation searched a New York City Sheriff’s Office facility in Queens on Thursday, two people familiar with the matter told POLITICO.

Exactly what DOI officials were searching for — or removed — from the facility was unclear.

The search comes after POLITICO first reported last week that DOI is probing the sheriff — and that Brooklyn federal prosecutors were probing that same agency as recently as last year.

Last week, the head of the sheriff’s union, Ingrid Simonovic, testified at a City Council hearing on cannabis enforcement that multiple complaints had been filed about Miranda’s conduct and his handling of the office’s enforcement efforts.

After POLITICO broke the news of the investigations, the New York Post reported that the DOI probe concerns whether sheriff’s officers solicited donations to the National Latino Officers Association in exchange for looking the other way on enforcement matters.

At the council hearing, a lawyer for unlicensed cannabis store owners, Nadia Kahnauth, testified that an NYPD official told her Miranda’s office is responsible for cash seized during raids of unlicensed cannabis shops.

“All of the property is being invoiced by the NYPD, except cash. … There is absolutely no method to locate the money and we are being directed that it is the sheriff who has the money,” Kahnauth said. “So then I have to open two different claims with internal affairs and the sheriff’s department. Each agency … [says] the other one took it, or the other one vouchered it, or the other one’s responsible for it.”

When reached by phone last week, Miranda declined to answer questions.

A spokesperson for the sheriff’s press office refused to answer a list of emailed questions and, when reached by phone, simply said, “no comment.”