New York Mayor Adams charged in Turkey bribery, fraud scheme

U.S. prosecutors on Thursday charged New York City Mayor Eric Adams with accepting illegal campaign contributions and luxury travel from Turkish nationals seeking to influence him, capping an investigation that has sent the largest U.S. city’s government into turmoil.

In a 57-page indictment, prosecutors laid out an alleged scheme stretching back to 2014 that helped to underwrite Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign and showered him with free rooms at opulent hotels and meals at high-end restaurants.

In return, Adams pressured city officials to waive safety inspections and allow the country’s new 36-story consulate to open, prosecutors said. The Democrat faces five criminal charges, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Adams, 64, denied wrongdoing and said he would fight the charges. He said he would not step down.

“I will continue to do my job as mayor,” he said at a news conference, where some onlookers called on him to resign.

Turkey’s foreign ministry and president’s office and its embassy in Washington had no immediate comment.

Earlier on Thursday, federal agents searched the mayor’s Gracie Mansion home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, according to a Reuters witness. Around a dozen people in business attire were seen walking on the mansion’s grounds with briefcases and duffel bags.

Adams, a former police officer who rose to the rank of captain, is the first of the city’s 110 mayors to be criminally charged while in office.

Adams could be removed from office by DemocraticNew York Governor Kathy Hochul but the process is complicated, said Pace University Law School professor Bennett Gershman.

FREE TRAVEL, ILLEGAL CONTRIBUTIONS

According to the indictment, Adams accepted free travel from a Turkish airline worth tens of thousands of dollars while serving as Brooklyn borough president and paid $600 to stay two nights at a luxury suite in the St. Regis hotel in Istanbul, well below the actual cost of $7,000.

For his 2021 mayoral campaign, Adams disguised campaign contributions from Turkish sources by funneling it through U.S. citizens, the indictment said. Those funds allowed Adams to qualify for an additional $10 million in public financing.

Adams accepted well over $100,000 in luxury travel overall, said Damian Williams, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan.

“This was a multi-year scheme to buy favor with a single New York City politician on the rise,” Williams said at a news conference.

Prosecutors say Adams responded to Turkish concerns. He cut ties with a community center in Brooklyn after a Turkish diplomat said it was affiliated with a hostile political movement, according to the indictment, and in 2023 helped a Turkish businessman resolve a permitting issue with the city.

In 2021, Adams, acting on a request by the diplomat, pressured a fire department official to allow the country’s new consulate to open even though it would have failed a fire inspection, the indictment said.

Adams denied wrongdoing and said he was aiming for a public trial to defend himself. “If it’s foreign donors, I know I don’t take money from foreign donors,” he said.

TOP CITY OFFICIALS RESIGN

The case is likely to complicate any Adams bid for re-election in 2025, as other Democratic politicians, including New York City comptroller Brad Lander, plan to challenge him.

U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also a Democrat, became the first member of Congress to urge him to step down.

New York has been in a state of political upheaval for the past month. Police Commissioner Edward Caban resigned on Sept. 12, a week after FBI agents seized his phone. Days later, Adams’ chief legal adviser resigned.

On Wednesday, the city’s public schools chief David Banks said he would retire at the end of the year, after the New York Times reported his phones were seized by federal agents.