Family of slain NYPD cop Robert Venable backs Adams after NYT claims mayor lied about officer’s photo
The family of slain NYPD cop Robert Venable publicly backed Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday, insisting that he’s been a constant and supportive presence in their lives ever since the late officer was murdered three decades ago.
Three of Venable’s relatives, including his own daughter, rushed to Adams’ defense after the New York Times alleged he had lied about carrying a weathered photo of his friend and fallen NYPD comrade in his wallet ever since he was killed in the line of duty in 1987.
“I was only eight when my father was murdered. I don’t remember most of the people who were there for my family, but in the 36 years since I lost my father, Eric Adams has been there, even after the cameras were gone,” Venable’s daughter, Januari Venable, said in a statement issued via the mayor’s office.
“Eric personally drove me and my family to Fourth of July fireworks in the past, and when I called him at the last minute to attend a memorial for my father, the mayor was there.”
The mayor, on his part, has accused the Times of using the Venable family as pawns to push the “fabricated narrative” that he had never been friends with the late transit cop.
The saga erupted after the outlet alleged, citing a person familiar with the so-called ordeal, that the portrait Adams said he carries in his wallet was just an image taken from Google that had been intentionally stained with coffee in January last year to make it appear older than it is.
“I can’t see him doing that because he had an actual relationship with my family,” Venable’s niece, Meredith Benson, told The Post.
“If he needed a story, he had a story, right? He could just say ‘I was very close to, you know, Rob’s mother and supported her through his death and supported the family’ because that is 100% complete and true.”
Benson said Adams regularly called her grandmother — Venable’s mother who passed away in 2015 — after he was murdered by drug dealers in East New York.
“I know that they had a very good relationship,” she said. “It wasn’t that he was coming to our house for dinner… but he was someone who my grandmother could call on the phone at any time.”
“One of the things that was important to my grandmother was that, if my uncle had lived, I think she very much saw a lot of my uncle in Eric,” Benson continued. “She was very proud of all of his achievements.”
The late cop’s niece ripped the Times, accusing the outlet of trying to use her “uncle’s legacy to undo somebody.”
“It feels like a targeted attack,” Benson said, adding: “Don’t use a public servant who died in line of duty… to try to say he’s a liar.”
Denise Benson, who is Venable’s sister and Benson’s mother, also accused the outlet of harassing the family for months in a bid to undermine the family’s relationship with Adams.
“I didn’t know all of my brother’s friends, but Eric Adams had a wonderful relationship with my mother and was there for my family when it mattered despite The New York Times’ effort to drive a wedge between us,” she said in the statement issued by the mayor’s office.
“For months, the Times has harassed our family and annoyed us persistently, all in an effort to undermine our relationship with Eric, but he has shown up for us over and over again — where has The New York Times been?”
