The son of superstar psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw has eliminated some controversial photographs from a not-yet-published reality-style NYPD collection, in line with sources accustomed to negotiations underway between the town and the producer.
The edits had been made after the New York Metropolis Regulation Division sued 39-year-old producer Jordan McGraw in January to dam the discharge of his challenge, titled “Behind the Badge,” claiming sure parts of episodes McGraw had produced would endanger the lives of police and witnesses.
Jordan McGraw and his digicam crew had been granted uncommon behind-the-scenes entry in 2025 to NYPD operations — particularly by then-Mayor Eric Adams — in line with two sources accustomed to the association, as first reported by NBC New York in January. The sources mentioned the deal was lower over the objections of NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
The son of TV superstar Dr. Phil faces a lawsuit from the Metropolis of New York. The town needs a choose to dam Jordan McGraw and his media firm from distributing behind the scenes video they are saying places police and the general public in danger. NBC New York’s Melissa Russo studies.
After Mayor Zohran Mamdani took workplace, his Regulation Division moved shortly into court docket to dam the discharge of McGraw’s episodes, arguing some materials included in tough lower episodes would injury the fame of the NYPD and pose “an imminent menace to life and security of energetic cops.”
In its criticism, the town argued “faces, voices and names of undercover officers conducting operations in plainclothes” had not been obscured and that McGraw had “blatantly disregarded” a clause of their contract giving the town energy to preview tough cuts of episodes and, inside 10 days, veto any parts they deem “unusable” for confidentiality or public security causes.
However regardless of McGraw’s latest revisions, and productive settlement negotiations described by either side in interviews and court docket filings, the town has not issued ultimate approval for the nine-episode collection, having reviewed simply 4 episodes to this point.
In response to sources accustomed to the NYPD’s ongoing evaluation course of, not all the fabric thought-about problematic by the town has been taken out.
“I do not know what the town goes to say, however in our view, all the things has been resolved,” McGraw’s lawyer Chip Babcock mentioned in an interview with NBC New York earlier than a court docket listening to scheduled for Friday afternoon.
The contract granting the weird entry to McGraw was signed by Mayor Adams’ Metropolis Corridor Chief of Employees in the future after the previous mayor’s corruption costs had been dismissed by President Donald Trump’s Justice Division.
Jordan McGraw’s father, superstar psychologist Dr. Phil, performed a task in connecting then-Mayor Adams with the Trump administration, as he confronted federal corruption costs.
Dr. Phil publicly took credit score for introducing Mayor Adams to Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan.
“Along with introducing you to Mayor Adams, I launched you to among the prime cops in New York,” Dr. Phil advised Homan in a Dec. 2024 interview on his TV community.
Jordan McGraw’s legal professional Chip Babcock advised NBC New York there was no connection between the previous Mayor’s entry to the Trump administration and his shopper’s entry to shoot an NYPD collection.
“There actually isn’t any tie to the Trump administration,” Babcock mentioned in an interview.
In response to former NYPD chief of division and NBC New York guide Terence Monahan, “To have a present go ahead with out the specific approval of the Police Commissioner and the Deputy Commissioner of Public Info within the NYPD is extraordinarily uncommon.”
Entry to the NYPD was not the one factor Mayor Adams was making an attempt to grant McGraw. A number of excessive rating FDNY sources advised NBC New York there was an aggressive push from Metropolis Corridor to increase McGraw’s entry to fireside operations for a second collection. The hearth division sources say they efficiently resisted, citing HIPAA legal guidelines defending hearth victims and EMS sufferers as considered one of a number of causes to not take part.
As McGraw was acquiring profitable entry to video content material from Eric Adams’s metropolis corridor, an LLC McGraw arrange in 2025 was paid $500,000 by the Adams for mayor marketing campaign, in line with marketing campaign filings.
In January, when the Adams marketing campaign was requested who was behind the LLC, Fairfax Digital, they declined to say.
After Adams’s former marketing campaign supervisor and McGraw’s legal professional confirmed that Fairfax was certainly McGraw’s firm, marketing campaign legal professional Vito Pitta texted NBC New York to say he would haven’t any additional touch upon the subject.
In a letter to U.S. District Courtroom Choose Denise Cote forward of a deliberate listening to Friday, Metropolis Company Counsel Steven Banks indicated the town would ask the court docket to increase its TRO blocking the discharge of the disputed episodes till April 30. With out that order, Banks mentioned, distribution of the episodes “would unjustifiably put the Metropolis, the NYPD, and civilians in danger, and irreparably hurt the Metropolis’s good will and fame.
Banks additionally wrote he was hopeful a draft settlement settlement may very well be finalized in shortly.
After the town sued McGraw in January, his legal professional Babcock mentioned he would make a First Modification argument.
“It seems that the Metropolis is in search of to restrain publication on a matter of public concern forgetting maybe that prior restraints are presumptively unconstitutional underneath the First Modification,” Babcock advised NBC New York in a January assertion.
However that tone had shifted dramatically as Babcock headed into court docket Friday.
“The faces of civilians who could be witnesses can be blurred if the town needs that. There can be no dialogue of delicate police operations that the town is worried about. And there is not going to be any video of the NYPD officer inputting a safety code to the again door entrance to a precinct station that the town raised,” mentioned Babcock.
