New York City Mayor Eric Adams is facing federal corruption charges, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday.
Prosecutors say that, starting in 2014, Adams sought and accepted “improper valuable benefits” such as luxury international travel from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official who was seeking to influence him.
By 2018, Adams “not only accepted but sought” illegal campaign contributions to his 2021 mayoral campaign, in addition to “other things of value” from foreign nationals, the indictment alleges.
Those gains were compounded by New York City’s small-dollar donation matching program, prosecutors said. By accepting straw donations and falsely certifying them as in compliance with campaign finance regulations, Adams’s 2021 mayoral campaign allegedly illegally received more than $10 million in public funds.
And after Adams was inaugurated as mayor, he began planning to solicit additional illegal contributions and granting requests from 2021 supporters who gave such donations in preparation for his next election, the government said.
He faces five counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national and bribery. Adams is expected to be arraigned in federal court in New York on Friday.
Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a press conference Thursday that the conduct alleged violated public trust.
“These are bright red lines, and we alleged that the mayor crossed them again and again, for years,” Williams said, adding that the investigation into Adams is ongoing.
Jocelyn Strauber, New York City’s Department of Investigation commissioner, joined federal prosecutors at their press conference and said Adams’s alleged conduct created “real costs to the city and to the public.”
Prosecutors allege Adams — and others working at his direction — took “repeated” steps to shield his actions from public scrutiny. He did not disclose any travel benefits in annual financial disclosures and sometimes created or instructed others to create fake paper trails, they said. He also allegedly deleted messages with others involved in his conduct.
The benefits an unnamed Turkish official provided to Adams eventually required payback in the form of a pressure campaign by Adams to facilitate the opening of a new Turkish consular building, the government alleges.
Adams allegedly pressured the New York City Fire Department to allow the building — which would have failed a fire safety inspection at the time — to open, which resulted in a fire department official being told he would lose his job if he didn’t acquiesce.
Prosecutors say Adams’s relationship with Turkey began in 2015, when the then-Brooklyn borough president took two official trips to the nation.
The New York Times first reported the indictment’s existence late Wednesday.
In a video statement Wednesday night, Adams refuted any allegations against him as “lies” and vowed to remain in office.
The mayor held a press conference Thursday and, surrounded by his supporters, said the indictment was to be expected and vowed to fight the legal charges while remaining in office.
“We are not surprised. We expected this. This is not surprising to us at all. The actions that have unfolded over the past 10 months — the leaks, the commentary, the demonizing — this did not surprise us that we reached this day,” Adams said.
“I ask to wait and hear our side to this narrative. From here, my attorneys will take care of the case so I can take care of the city,” he added. “My day to day will not change. I will continue to do the job for 8.3 million New Yorkers that I was elected to do.”
He also said he would not resign from office, as protesters drowned him out at the outdoor event.
Adams’s indictment follows a series of investigations into the mayor’s associates, resulting in FBI raids and numerous resignations from top officials including the city’s police commissioner, health commissioner, schools chancellor and chief legal adviser.
Adams’s home was raided by the FBI earlier this year. Federal agents also entered the mayor’s official residence early Thursday morning and seized his phone, just hours after the indictment was expected to be unsealed.
“Federal agents appeared this morning at Gracie Mansion in an effort to create a spectacle (again) and take Mayor Adams phone (again),” Adams’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, said in a statement to The Associated Press.
“They send a dozen agents to pick up a phone when we would have happily turned it in,” he added.
Updated at 5:07 p.m. EDT
Sarah Fortinsky contributed.