Molly Crane-Newman, Chris Sommerfeldt and Thomas Tracy
New York Daily News
(TNS)
NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery and to receiving campaign contributions from foreign nationals, wire fraud and bribery in a federal indictment unsealed Thursday as part of a City Hall federal corruption investigation.
The charges stem from an investigation by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office that has scrutinized allegations that Turkey’s government funneled illegal donations into Adams’ 2021 campaign coffers. Earlier this month, it was revealed that probe is also looking at communications between Adams and the governments of five other foreign countries.
In the indictment, federal investigators described what they called a scheme that spanned “nearly a decade,” starting when Adams became Brooklyn borough president in 2014, that involved him seeking and accepting “improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him.”
They say Adams then proceeded to solicit and accept illegal straw donations from Turkish nationals and, once he became mayor, his “foreign-national benefactors sought to cash in on their corrupt relationships with him” by seeking and securing favors from him.
Adams has kept this favor trading relationship going while mayor, and has continued soliciting illegal straw donations from Turkish nationals for his reelection campaign, according to the indictment.
Adams first traveled to Turkey in 2015, where he met many of the unnamed foreign nationals who are key to the indictment, including the “Turkish Official,” a Turkish “promoter” and a Turkish “businessman” who owns a Turkish university. The trio would spend years pulling together illegal straw donations to Adams’ campaign and bribe him with gifts, the indictment claims.
With Adams on that 2015 trip was Rana Abbasova, a longtime aide of his who was suspended from her City Hall post after being raided by the feds last year. The court papers say Abbasova “coordinated many of the illegal campaign contributions and improper personal travel benefits relevant to this Indictment.”
After accepting the travel perks and free flights, Adams was told by the Turkish national that “it was his turn to repay” him — by pressuring the FDNY to fast-track the opening of a new 36-floor Turkish consulate, the indictment read.
“The FDNY official responsible for the FDNY’s assessment of the skyscraper’s fire safety was told that he would lose his job if he failed to acquiesce,” according to the indictment.
The feds say that his campaign managed to steal public matching funds as part of this scheme by falsely certifying illegal donations to the campaign. “As a result of those false certifications, ADAMS’s 2021 mayoral campaign received more than $10,000,000 in public funds,” the indictment says.
Adams has professed his innocence.
“I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target — and a target I became,” Adams said in a video statement late Wednesday after news broke that he had been indicted in the long-brewing corruption probe. “If I am charged, I am innocent and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit.”
On Thursday morning federal investigators converged on Gracie Mansion and executed a search warrant, seizing at least one phone, his attorney Alex Spiro said.
“They emailed us a summons (and created the spectacle of a bogus raid),” Spiro said in a statement. “And very soon they will no doubt hold an hour-long dog-and-pony show presser rather than appear in open court. Federal judges call them out all the time for spinning in front of the cameras and tainting jurors. But they keep doing it because they can’t help themselves, the spotlight is just too exciting.
“We will see them in court,” Spiro said.
Several elected officials and advocates have called on Adams to resign in light of the indictment, claiming he can’t oversee city government while defending himself in a criminal federal case.
Last November, the feds seized multiple phones and electronic devices from the mayor as part of their corruption probe.
Adams is the first New York City mayor in the modern era to face criminal charges while in office. His administration has been reeling in recent weeks from additional investigations and a series of high-profile resignations.
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