MALONE, NEW YORK May 11, 2026
A killer on parole has been charged with assaulting a parole officer with lethal drugs.
Adam Adams, 58, allegedly blew powdered fentanyl, heroin and cocaine in the face of New York State Parole Officer Tanisha Birdell on Apr. 29 in Queens.
Birdell was searching Adams for contraband when she “discovered a quantity of unknown controlled substance in perps front right pocket,” the criminal complaint charging Adams alleges.
“Perp then blew said substance into C/V’s face causing redness and burning to eyes. C/V also states face started to have burning sensation and numbness to face,” according to the criminal complaint.
The NYPD arrested Adams and charged him with assault on a police officer, a class C felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Adams was also charged with harassment.
At the time of the alleged assault, Adams was on parole for a 1990 murder and attempted kidnapping in Brooklyn.
NYPD lab tests conducted May 9 determined the drugs Adams allegedly assaulted Birdell with were fentanyl, heroin and cocaine.
The chemical attack on a parole officer adds to the mounting crises faced by the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision—the state agency that manages New York’s prison and parole system.
Two Corrections Officers in an upstate New York prison were sent to the hospital in early April after they intercepted a visitor allegedly attempting to smuggle contraband “paper” drugs into the Mohawk Correctional Facility outside Rome, The Free Lance News reported.
The drug exposures are the latest in a wave of “mysterious” chemical poisonings of prison guards, nurses and even prison office workers.
For example, 15 Correction Officers, eight nurses and an office assistant were stricken in four days at the Upstate Correctional Facility in January 2025. One of those nurses lost her unborn child after her exposure, her husband told The Free Lance News.
Another dozen or so workers at Upstate were stricken eight months later in August.
When about 4/5s of New York’s entire prison guard force went on an illegal strike in February and March 2025, strikers cited the chemical exposures as one of their reasons.
Now, as the chemical attack on Birdell shows, the chemical exposures DOCCS’ workers are facing is not limited to prisons—they’re happening on the street to DOCCS’ parole officers too.
Adams is due back in court June 16.
Neither his lawyer nor the press office for the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision immediately responded to an invitation to comment.
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