Queens residents donate $130K to mayor’s legal defense fund
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Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar was one of nearly 50 Queens residents to donate to Mayor Eric Adams’ legal defense fund. File photo by Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
By Jacob Kaye
Queens residents accounted for over $130,000 of the approximately $725,000 donated to the mayor’s legal defense fund, new public filings show.
Nearly 50 Queens residents accounted for $132,600 of the total donations given to Mayor Eric Adams to fund his potential legal battle against a reported federal probe into his 2021 campaign.
Though the mayor himself has yet to be accused of any wrongdoing, Adams has spent nearly half a million dollars of the fund’s donations on work from the white-shoe law firm WilmerHale. He’s also spent nearly $7,000 on a firm that specializes in forensic evidence collection after his phones and an iPad were seized by FBI agents allegedly looking into his campaign’s fundraising efforts in November. Around $18,600 was paid to Artus Group, a firm tasked with vetting potential donors to the fund.
Adams launched the legal defense fund in November, shortly after the home of his former top fundraiser, Brianna Suggs, was searched during an early morning raid by the FBI.
On Tuesday, the fund, which is run by attorney Vito Pitta, made its first filing with the Conflicts of Interest Board, listing the names of those who donated to the mayor – who also unveiled his city budget proposal and made a separate campaign filing on Tuesday.
While a number of high-profile donors from around the city sent Adams the $5,000 maximum donation, including former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and cryptocurrency investor Brock Pierce, the mayor also received over a dozen maximum donations in Queens.
While there were a few donations from high-profile Queens residents, most donations came from people who don’t appear to be particularly politically active.
Lawyers, real estate agents and an executive at a catering business were among those Queens residents who gave to the mayor’s fund.
“New Yorkers called and said, ‘We want to help,’” the mayor said during an unrelated press conference on Tuesday. “You sometimes don’t realize how people appreciate your life of service.”
The most prominent donor from Queens was Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar, who cut the mayor’s legal defense a $2,500 check on Dec. 15, 2023.
Rajkumar, who represents parts of Ridgewood, Woodhaven, Glendale, Richmond Hill, South Richmond Hill and Ozone Park, appeared to be the only sitting elected official to have donated to the mayor’s fund.
The Queens lawmaker did not respond to the Eagle’s request for comment on Wednesday.
Rajkumar has proven to be one of mayor’s staunchest supporters. Though she represents a portion of South Queens, the lawmaker has appeared at events alongside Adams in nearly all corners of the city.
She was the first elected official from Queens to endorse Adams during his initial bid for mayor in 2021, and she was named to his transition team once he was elected.
Last year, the two paired up to pass legislation in Albany establishing Diwali as a New York City public school holiday.
The legislation, which was widely celebrated by the South Asian community Rajkumar represents in Queens, may have won over some Sikh residents in the borough – around half a dozen people with common Sikh names donated to the mayor’s legal defense fund for a total of $3,250.
Most of the donations given to the mayor’s fund came from donors in a select number of neighborhoods in Queens, most of which voted for the mayor in 2021.
Nearly all of the donations came from residents of South or Central Queens – with the exception of a few donors from Jackson Heights, one from Corona and one from Woodside, there were virtually no donors from Western Queens, the most progressive part of the borough.
Six donors were from Flushing, and another six were from Jamaica, including Devi and Darmin Bachu, both of whom are attorneys.
Seven donors said they live in Forest Hills, including Ilya Zavolunov, the CFO of local catering hall Da Mikelle & Co., and Boris Matatov, whose father is a well-known local developer.
Five donors hail from Fresh Meadows, and two live in Rego Park, including Steve Samandarov, an attorney who hung up on an Eagle reporter calling to ask about his $2,500 donation to the mayor.
Three donors live in Belle Harbor, including two relatives of Frank Carone, the mayor’s former chief of staff who himself gave $5,000 to the mayor’s fund.
The mayor also received donations from New Yorkers living in Bayside, Cambria Heights, Hollis, Queens Village and Kew Gardens Hills.
Leo Jacobs, an attorney from Kew Gardens Hills who donated $5,000 to the mayor’s legal defense fund, told the Eagle that he decided to give to the mayor’s fund because he approves of Adams’ policies. In particular, Jacobs said he appreciates the mayor’s efforts to support targeted programs for those with dyslexia, and efforts to make the city’s streets safer and cleaner.
When asked how he first came to learn of the mayor’s legal defense fund, Jacobs said he couldn’t recall.
According to reporting by Politico, donors either wrote checks to the fund on their own or were solicited by the mayor himself. The fund did not hold any fundraising events, the outlet reported.
Perhaps the most prominent donor to the mayor’s fund was the mayor himself, who cut two checks for a total of $120, or around 0.01 percent of the fund’s total donations.
