5 things to know about the indictment against Eric Adams

New York City Mayor Eric Adams faces a five-count criminal indictment stemming from a federal corruption investigation, charges fellow Democrats from New York to Washington have deemed “serious.” 

Adams, who has been charged with wire fraud, foreign contribution solicitation and bribery, denied allegations of wrongdoing in a press conference Thursday. He insisted he would not resign from office.

Federal officials raided Gracie Mansion — Adams’s home as the city’s top executive — on Thursday morning as part of the investigation into improper use of campaign funds and particular connections to Turkey, which traced back to his 2021 bid for mayor of New York. 

In addressing part of the indictment that focused on Adams’s alleged financial conflicts and luxurious travel benefits, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said: “These upgrades and freebies were not part of some frequent-flyer or benefits program available to the general public.”

Adams, a former New York Police Department captain, is the city’s second Black mayor and has been a key ally of President Biden, though the two have sparred throughout his tenure. 

Here are five things to know about the indictment:

1. Prosecutors say Adams’s campaign illegally received $10M in public funds

Prosecutors are pointing to Adams allegedly accepting money through a fund-matching program, which effectively matches individuals’ small-dollar donations with as much as eight times their contribution in public financing. 

The indictment states that Adams’s mayoral campaign “applied for matching funds based on known straw donations, fraudulently obtaining as much as $2,000 in public funds for each illegal contribution.”

It further claims that he and associates “falsely certified compliance” to give the appearance of adhering to current campaign finance laws. The move ultimately resulted in a total of $10 million in funds from the public, according to the indictment. 

2. Adams urged FDNY to OK a new Turkish consulate, at Turkey’s request

A Turkish official pressed Adams in September 2021 to convince the the New York City Fire Department to allow a new Turkish consular building to open without the proper building inspection. The official wanted the opening before a widely anticipated visit from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. 

“At the time, the building would have failed an FDNY inspection,” the indictment reads.

Adams, according to the court document, “did as instructed,” after accepting “free travel and other travel related bribes in 2021 and 2022 arranged by the Turkish Official.”

The U.S. attorney said Thursday that “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,” said Williams. “That is the only reason we are here.” 

3. Turkish associates celebrated Adams’s election victory

Following Adams’s win in the New York mayoral election, two Turkish individuals — a businessman and a person the indictment lists only as a “promoter” — expressed excitement over the results. 

The Turkish businessman asked if the elections had finished, to which the promoter responded that he received “congratulations messages” about Adams’s success and predicted that he would be assigned “as a representative.”

“I’m going to go and talk to our elders in Ankara about how we can turn this into an advantage for our country’s lobby,” the promoter went on. The businessman responded positively to the news: “That would be nice.”

4. Adams told the FBI his phone was ‘locked’ and he forgot his password

The day after FBI agents attempted to search Adams’s cellphone and other devices via a warrant, he said that he was not able to get into it because he forgot his password.  

Adams said, following a federal subpoena, that it was “locked” and that he had created a new password the prior day. 

In the indictment, Adams claimed that he deliberately changed the lock code “to prevent members of his staff from inadvertently or intentionally deleting the contents of his phone” as not to tamper with the current investigation.

5. A staffer left a meeting with the FBI to use the bathroom — and deleted phone messaging software while there

During a meeting with FBI agents that the indictment describes as “voluntary,” a staffer working for Adams got up from the interview to use the bathroom. 

The document states that during her time away from the meeting with FBI agents, ostensibly in the bathroom, she “deleted the encrypted messaging applications she had used to communicate with ADAMS, the Promoter, the Turkish Official, the Airline Manager, and others.”

Ella Lee contributed.