Mayor Eric Adams charged with bribery
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Mayor Eric Adams was slapped with bribery charges by federal prosecutors on Thursday, making him the first sitting mayor to be criminally prosecuted. AP photo by Ted Shaffrey
By Jacob Kaye & Ryan Schwach
Eric Adams became the first New York City mayor in modern history to be criminally charged while in office on Thursday.
Federal prosecutors said that over the course of a decade, Adams solicited and received over $100,000 in illegal gifts from Turkish officials looking to “buy favor with a single New York City politician on the rise.”
Adams also allegedly leaned on those same officials to contribute illegal campaign donations during his run for mayor in 2021 and during his ongoing bid for reelection next year. In all, the donations allowed Adams to collect over $10 million in allegedly ill-gotten public matching funds, which are paid for with taxpayer dollars.
Prosecutors say that Adams eventually paid the officials back when he pressured the fire department to lie about completing a fire inspection on a new Turkish consulate building so that it could open in time for a visit from Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The five-count indictment charging Adams with charges related to bribery, wire fraud and efforts to solicit campaign money from foreign nationals was announced by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams on Thursday, almost a year after federal law enforcement officials first seized the mayor’s phones and raided the home of one of Adams’ top campaign fundraisers.
“The foreign money, the bribery, the years of concealment is a grave breach of the public's trust,” Williams said. “We allege that Mayor Adams abused that privilege and broke the law – laws that are designed to ensure that officials like him serve the people, not the highest bidder, not a foreign bidder and certainly not a foreign power.”
“These are bright red lines, and we allege that the mayor crossed them again and again for years,” the prosecutor added.
News of the indictment first began to spread Wednesday evening, prompting a wave of calls for Adams’ resignation. As he has done for the past week as the first demands for him to step down began to trickle in, Adams resisted those calls.
Speaking outside of Gracie Mansion alongside a dozen or so supporters as protesters called for the mayor to resign, Adams insisted that his “day-to-day will not change” as the criminal case against him continues.
Without evidence, the mayor and his allies suggested that the criminal charges for alleged behavior dating back to 2016 were brought against Adams as a form of political retribution for his criticism of the federal government’s handling of the migrant crisis.
“This is not surprising to us at all,” Adams said. “The actions that have unfolded over the last 10 months – the leaks, the commentary, the demonizing – this did not surprise us that we reached this day. I ask New Yorkers to wait to hear our defense before making any judgments.”
But Williams, who is believed to be pursuing a number of other corruption cases against members of Adams’ administration and campaign, said otherwise.
“We are not focused on the right or the left,” Williams said. “We are focused only on right and wrong.”
‘Such a friend’
Prosecutors say that as early as 2015, the first year of Adams’ tenure as Brooklyn borough president, he began a questionable relationship with several Turkish nationals.
That year, he allegedly took two official trips to the country, both of which he properly reported. However, while abroad, he met several officials who would later go on to provide him with free, luxury travel and hotel accommodations, and help funnel foreign donations into his campaign coffers, prosecutors said.
According to the charges, Adams took his first free flight with Turkish Airlines in 2016, shortly after he met the New York City-area manager for the airline. That year, he and his domestic partner, Tracey Collins, paid around $2,300 for two economy class tickets before they allegedly accepted upgrades to business class at no cost. Had they paid full price, it would have cost the elected official $15,000 in total.
The next year, Adams, one of his relatives and a staffer of his, took flights to France, Sri Lanka, China and Turkey via Turkish Airlines. In all, the group received over $55,000 in undisclosed gifts, according to the indictment.
Over the next several years, prosecutors say Adams did not disclose over $100,000 in flights and travel benefits from the Turkish officials, a number of which he allegedly solicited.
When Collins and Adams were planning a trip to Easter Island in 2017, the then-borough president asked his partner “whether the Turkish Airline could be used for their flights, requiring her to call the Turkish Airline to confirm that they did not have routes between New York and Chile.”
Prosecutors say Adams didn’t just break the law by not reporting the gifts, but that he also sometimes created a fake paper trail in an effort to cover them up.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams speaks at a news conference detailing an indictment against New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson
According to the charges, Adams at one point sent a number of emails to his scheduler – who he also employed to collect rent at one of the elected official’s properties – asking him to pay for several flights he had recently taken with Turkish Airlines. But the emails Adams sent didn’t appear to be consistent. Some said that the scheduler should pay by credit card, others said that the scheduler should pay with cash Adams had left in the employee’s desk.
Prosecutors say they found no record that Adams ever paid for the flights.
As he was allegedly receiving the free flights and hotel stays, Turkish officials were working with Adams and his campaign staffers to secretly funnel money into his campaign accounts, prosecutors claim.
Throughout his 2021 campaign for mayor, which he began raising funds for in 2018, “Adams solicited and knowingly accepted straw donations, including from foreign sources, while continuing to secretly accept free and heavily discounted travel benefits from” Turkish officials, the indictment reads.
In 2018, a Turkish official allegedly sent a message to an Adams staffer, telling them they could raise money for Adams’ mayoral run “off the record” by making it appear as though the donation had come from “an American citizen.” Adams’ staffer responded by saying that they didn’t believe Adams would “get involved in such games.”
However, after asking Adams about what to do about the potential $100,000 illicit donation, “Adams directed that the [staffer] pursue the [official’s] illegal scheme.”
Adams’ attempts to solicit straw donations continued through to his campaign for reelection, which now appears to be an even more dubious venture than it was previously.
Prosecutors said Adams brought in over $10 million in public matching funds through the fake donations.
“This kind of corruption has real costs to the city and to the public,” said Department of Investigation Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber.
In return for the straw donations and free travel, Turkish officials in 2021 began to ask Adams to help them resolve an issue they were having with their new consulate building in Manhattan.
The Turkish government had yet to get the FDNY to come to the building to conduct a fire safety inspection, which was needed in order for the building to open.
After being asked to help, Adams allegedly reached out to the then-FDNY commissioner, Daniel Nigro and asked if he could expedite the inspection. That’s when an inspector made their way to the consulate and found “some major issues” that would prevent them from passing inspection. The inspector was later told that they would lose their job if they didn’t sign off the safety inspection.
“You are such a friend,” a Turkish official later wrote to Adams after the building fraudulently passed the inspection, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said that Adams also took steps to cover up his communications with the officials and with his staff after he learned that an investigation into his behavior was underway.
In November 2023, FBI agents seized a number of the mayor’s phones. However, he was not carrying his personal cell phone at the time. The next day, the agents returned to collect the phone but found that Adams had changed the passcode before their arrival.
“Adams had done this, he claimed to prevent members of his staff from inadvertently or intentionally deleting the contents of his phone because, according to Adams, he wished to preserve the contents of his phone due to the investigation,” the indictment read.
But just after changing it, Adams told investigators that he had forgotten the password, preventing them from immediately accessing the phone’s content.
An alleged electronic communication between a staffer for Mayor Eric Adams and a Turkish Airlines manager included in the indictment of Adams unsealed on Thursday by federal prosecutors. Screenshot via U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York
Can Adams still run the city?
Even before the indictment was unsealed on Thursday, City Hall had been thrown into chaos and Adams’ ability to run the city was already being called into question.
In recent weeks, Adams’ police commissioner and schools chancellor both announced they would be leaving amid unrelated federal investigations into their own conduct, and two other deputy mayors had their homes raided by FBI agents.
His chief counsel, who had been a stark defender of her former boss, resigned reportedly because he declined to take her advice on the mounting legal issues targeting his inner circle, and Dr. Ashwin Vasan, the city’s top health official, also announced his intention to resign by the end of the year.
With the high-rate of turnover, a small handful of officials began to call on Adams to resign. They were joined by officials from across all levels of government on Thursday.
Local councilmembers, state officials and congressional representatives said Thursday that they don’t believe Adams will be able to effectively run City Hall and keep the city’s government functioning as he defends himself against the charges.
“He is unable to effectively lead and govern,” said Queens Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, who was the first councilmember to call for his resignation last week. “While he awaits his right to due process, he must resign. New York deserves better.”
While Cabán has long been one of Adams’ loudest critics, questions about his ability to serve were raised up by electeds who often agree with him politically, like conservative Queens Councilmember Bob Holden.
“While he is presumed innocent until proven guilty, there is no way he can effectively lead with this cloud hanging over him,” Holden said. “With the challenges our city faces, he must step down for the good of New Yorkers.”
Calls for Adams’ resignation have also come from Queens Councilmembers Julie Won, Jennifer Gutiérrez, Shekar Krishnan, Linda Lee and state legislators John Liu, Jessica González-Rojas, Zohran Mamdani, mayoral candidate Jessica Ramos and a number of others.
Queens Councilmember and Council Speaker Adrienne Adams did not explicitly call for the mayor to resign on Thursday, but said he should “seriously and honestly consider whether full attention can be given to our deserving New Yorkers who need our government to be sound and stable.”
The speaker called the charges “serious” and said that she worried about their impact on the city and city government.
Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for Adams to resign on Wednesday afternoon before news of the indictment broke, and Representative Nydia Velázquez told reporters in Washington D.C. that if she were in his shoes, she “would have resigned today.”
Beyond being distracted by the criminal case against him, political insiders say Adams will likely face difficulties governing with a thinning group of allies, few of whom may want to associate themselves with him amid the charges.
“When you have a broad coalition of political stakeholders and colleagues of yours in government calling you to resign, the writing is on the wall, you have lost the ability and the credibility to lead the city,” said Democratic political strategist Trip Yang. “It seriously undermines the mayor’s assertion that he can still be a leader.”
Should he resign, Adams would be temporarily replaced by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams – who stopped short of calling for a resignation on Thursday. Williams would be charged for scheduling a special election, which would likely take place around three months after Adams’ resignation.
That special election could lead to its own brand of chaos, with new challengers joining the city’s preexisting group of mayoral hopefuls, all in a mad dash to campaign for the seat.
If Adams does not resign before his term ends, there is the potential he’s forced out of office.
That could happen by the hands of either Governor Kathy Hochul, or by an “inability committee,” which would be made up of a handful of government officials, including Speaker Adams and the longest serving borough president – Queens Borough President Donovan Richards.
Richards’ spokesperson Chris Barca told the Eagle the BP will review the indictment, but refrained from commenting further due to his potential role in the mayor’s future.
But on the chance Adams serves out his term, Yang said there appears to be a “very slim possibility” that he wins his bid for reelection.
“The question now remains, is he going to serve out his full term, or is he going to resign or be pushed out of office? That's the real question,” Yang said. “The question is not going to be, is he going to be the mayor come January 2026? I think most people know the answer to that.”
