Report: NYC Mayor Eric Adams Indicted After Federal Corruption Investigation
The New York Times reported that New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted after a federal corruption investigation, according to “people with knowledge of the matter.”
Adams has been mayor for three years.
From The New York Times:
The indictment remained sealed on Wednesday night, and it was unclear what charge or charges Mr. Adams will face. But when they are made public, he will become the first New York City mayor to be criminally charged while in office.The indictment promised to reverberate across the nation’s largest city and beyond, plunging Mr. Adams’s embattled administration further into chaos just months before he is set to face challengers in a hotly contested mayoral primary.Representatives of Mr. Adams and his campaign said they had no immediate comment.
The FBI and federal prosecutors began investigating Adams two years ago, concentrating on his 2021 mayoral campaign.
Authorities alleged that Adams “pressured New York Fire Department officials to sign off on the Turkish government’s new high-rise consulate in Manhattan despite safety concerns with the building” weeks after he won the Democratic mayoral primary:
Mr. Adams’ intervention paved the way for the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose fondness for massive building projects was well known in Turkey, to preside over the grand opening of the $300 million, 35-story tower on his September 2021 visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly, despite numerous flaws in its fire safety system, according to the people familiar with the matter and city records. The skyscraper in the center of New York City reflected Turkey’s “increased power,” Mr. Erdogan said at its ribbon-cutting.The federal criminal inquiry has focused at least in part on whether Mr. Adams’s 2021 campaign conspired with the Turkish government, including its consulate general in New York, to illegally funnel foreign money into its coffers, according to a search warrant obtained by The New York Times for an F.B.I. search this month of the home of the mayor’s chief fund-raiser.
At the time, Adams served as Brooklyn borough president, a ceremonial job that certainly did not extend to Manhattan.
The public found out in late 2023:
The inquiry remained secret until late last year, when an F.B.I. search of his chief fund-raiser’s home thrust it into public view. After searching the home of the fund-raiser, Brianna Suggs, last November, federal investigators left with two laptop computers, three iPhones and a manila folder labeled “Eric Adams.” Ms. Suggs has not been accused of wrongdoing.Days later, in a dramatic scene on a Greenwich Village street, F.B.I. agents told the mayor’s security detail to step aside, climbed into his S.U.V. with him and seized his electronic devices.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY