John Jefferson
Eric Adams is facing a raft of felony charges as the first-ever federal indictment against a sitting New York City mayor was unsealed Thursday.
The flamboyant Adams, a former NYPD captain who liked to boast that his ascendance to City Hall brought a sense of “swagger” back to Gotham, was hit with five counts including wire fraud, bribery, conspiracy, and solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national. He was tripped up, in large part, by his taste for the finer things in life, according to the 57-page indictment.
Prosecutors say Adams, who vehemently denies the charges, has been on the take since at least 2014, when he was elected Brooklyn Borough president. Since then, the indictment alleges, Adams has continued to seek out, and happily accept, “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.”
“As Adams’ prominence and power grew, his foreign-national benefactors sought to cash in on their corrupt relationships with him, particularly when, in 2021, it became clear that Adams would become New York City’s mayor,” the indictment states.
In one particularly egregious episode, prosecutors say Adams turned the screws on New York City Fire Department officials to approve an occupancy permit for a newly constructed Turkish consular building in Manhattan the FDNY did not believe was safe.
In all, the indictment says Adams received free international flights to France, Sri Lanka, Hungary, China, India, and Turkey, deeply discounted stays at opulent hotels, pricey meals, and other perks worth more than $100,000. He then “repeatedly took steps to shield his solicitation and acceptance of these benefits from public scrutiny,” omitting the gifts from his required annual financial disclosures, paying “nominal” amounts to make it seem as if he had in fact paid for the freebies, and created “fake paper trails” to obfuscate the truth, according to the indictment.
“Adams deleted messages with others involved in his misconduct, including… assuring a co-conspirator in writing that he ‘always’ deleted her messages,” the indictment states.
Adams is also accused of soliciting illegal campaign contributions using “straw donors,” which allowed him to secretly take in cash from foreign entities, wealthy individuals who had already maxed out their allowable yearly contributions, and corporations prohibited by New York City law from donating money to political candidates. He has denied all the charges against him.
Here’s everything you need to know about Thursday’s historic indictment:
It begins…
Adams was elected Brooklyn Borough President in 2013, and “[w]ithin a year… began building relationships with foreign nationals who were seeking influence with him,” the indictment states. In August 2015, the Turkish Consulate General in New York arranged for Adams to travel to Turkey, where he set about “establish[ing] corrupt relationships,” according to the indictment. It says the trip was paid for by the Turkish consulate and a “for-profit educational conglomerate based in Istanbul.” A second trip that December was financed by a Turkish official and an unidentified Turkish businessman, both of whom later steered illegal contributions to Adams, according to the indictment.
“For both trips, Adams received free business class tickets on the Turkish Airline,” the indictment states.
The grift deepens
In 2016 and 2017, Adams, who was still borough president at the time, took three free or “heavily discounted” trips abroad for himself and his live-in partner, which were paid for by Adams’s Turkish benefactors, according to the indictment. The couple accepted $15,000 worth of free business class upgrades on an October 2016 jaunt to India, it says. In July and August 2017, Adams received free business class tickets to Nice, Istanbul, Sri Lanka, and Beijing for himself and a staffer, worth more than $35,000, the indictment states. In October of that year, Adams allegedly accepted more than $16,000 in free flights from his Turkish paymasters.
During his stay in Istanbul in the summer of 2017, the indictment says Adams, a relative of his, and a political liaison “accepted a heavily discounted stay at the St. Regis Istanbul,” arranged by the Turkish businessman. “The St. Regis Istanbul is owned by the Businesswoman, who sought to ingratiate herself with Adams.” Adams stayed in the hotel’s “Bentley Suite,” for which a normal guest would have paid roughly $7,000 for two nights, according to the indictment. Adams, however, “paid a total of less than $600,” it says.
Adams pulled similar stunts in 2018 and 2019, paying only a few hundred dollars for more than $14,000 worth of airline tickets for himself and his partner, and accepting “free hotel stays, dinners, and a boat trip, among other things… including a free two-night stay in the Cosmopolitan Suite of the St. Regis Istanbul.”
“Had Adams paid for a two-day stay in this luxury suite, the cost would have been approximately $3,000 total,” the indictent states. “Adams also solicited and accepted… free transportation, meals, and entertainment, including a car and driver, a boat tour to the Princes’ Islands in the Sea of Marmara, a Turkish bath at a seaside hotel, and at least one meal at a high-end restaurant.”
Cooking the books
Adams “sought to conceal the luxury travel benefits he solicited and accepted from foreign nationals by creating fake paper trails, which members of Adams’s staff assisted in at his direction,” the indictment states.
Not only did Adams have his official scheduler phony up his invoices, prosecutors say he directed the city employee “to perform personal tasks for him, such as collecting rent at a Brooklyn property he owned.” He also had the scheduler pay “various personal expenses for him,” after which he would reimburse the scheduler in cash, according to the indictment.
By 2018, Adams was starting to fundraise for his 2021 mayoral campaign, and set up a byzantine system under which Turkish business leaders secretly funneled tens of thousands of dollars in contributions to Adams, the indictment says.
“The 2021 Campaign requested, and received, Matching Funds for these straw donations,” according to the indictment. “… All told, the 2021 Campaign reaped over $10 million in Matching Funds based on the false certifications that the campaign complied with the law, when in fact Eric Adams, the defendant, knowingly and repeatedly relied on illegal contributions.”
Political favors
Adams was swayed by the Turkish largesse, agreeing to “no longer associate” with a Turkish community center in Brooklyn, with which he had an existing relationship, when the Turkish official Adams knew informed him that the center was “affiliated with a Turkish political movement that was hostile to Turkey’s government,” according to the indictment. If Adams wanted to continue “receiving support from the Turkish government,” the official told him, Adams would have to sever ties.
After Adams won the Democratic mayoral primary in July 2021, he “agreed to pressure a New York City agency to help the Turkish Consulate secure a temporary certificate of occupancy (TCO) for a building it owned and operated,” the indictment states. Adams also helped another Turkish businessman settle an issue he was having with the New York City Department of Buildings, and that same year, according to the indictment, “intervened with the FDNY to permit the Turkish Consulate to occupy a skyscraper that had not passed a fire safety inspection.”
On September 10, 2021, the FDNY commissioner messaged Adams, “Letter being drafted now. Everything should be good to go Monday morning.”
Four minutes later, the indictment explains, Adams messaged his contact inside the Turkish government: “From the commissioner: Letter being drafted now. Everything should be good to go Monday morning.”
The Turkish official replied, “You are Great Eric, we are so happy to hear that. You are a true friend of Turkey.”
It continues…
In 2023 and 2024, Adams continued to solicit and accept straw donations for his 2025 re-election campaign, according to the indictment. One fundraiser at a Manhattan hotel, which the indictment says was intentionally left off of Adams’s public calendar, was billed as a dinner “hosted by ‘International Sustainability Leaders’ with the subject ‘Sustainable Destinations’ and an attendance price of $5,000,” the indictment states. But, on Adams’s private calendar, the event was listed as a “Fundraiser for Eric Adams 2025,” with “a goal of ‘25k,’ and the note, ‘Total Submitted before the event: $22,800.’”
On November 6, 2023, FBI agents seized two of Adams’ cellphones, which were city-issued, according to the indictment. Agents, however, were really after Adams’ personal cell, which he promised to deliver the next day. When Adams later showed up with the device, he claimed he “had forgotten the password… and thus was unable to provide the FBI with a password that would unlock the phone.”
As the investigation into Adams continued, the indictment alleges, so did Adams’ “efforts to frustrate that investigation.”
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