NYC First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright resigns as Eric Adams' administration suffers more departures
New York City First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright resigned from her position Tuesday after the FBI raided her home in early September, becoming the latest senior official to depart Mayor Eric Adams’ administration as he faces federal corruption charges.
Wright’s resignation comes just days after her husband, New York City Public Schools Chancellor David Banks, announced that he would resign earlier than expected in October.
Adams' office announced Tuesday that "Deputy Mayor for Housing, Economic Development, and Workforce Maria Torres-Springer will be elevated to the position of first deputy mayor" following the "planned departure of First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, who played a critical role in launching and co-chairing the Adams administration’s successful Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, helping to stabilize the city's budget, and reimagining the city’s early childhood education system.
On Monday, Winnie Greco, the mayor’s director of Asian affairs, also resigned from her role.
"Her decision yesterday to resign was made on her own volition," her attorney Steven Brill said Tuesday in a statement to Fox News Digital. "It is a sad ending to her admirable career as a public servant where she spent the last 30 years dedicating herself to helping in particular the Asian community in New York."
The same day, Rena Abbasova, a staffer for Adams who worked in the office of international affairs, was fired from her job, with sources telling Fox News that she was let go because she is the "key cooperating witness" in the federal investigation of Adams.
Senior New York City Hall official Mohamed Bahi, the mayor's liason to the Muslim community, also stepped down on Monday. This morning, federal prosecutors announced they unsealed a complaint charging him "with witness tampering and destruction of evidence in connection with a federal investigation of unlawful contributions to a particular 2021 mayoral campaign."
"If there were no vulnerabilities here, nobody would have to resign," former NYPD inspector and Fox News contributor Paul Mauro told Fox News Digital. "Obviously, a lot of them are trying to make the point ‘oh I was going to leave anyway’ -- but these are all the people from [Adams’] tightest inner circle and this is the team he put together to run the city and for them to be leaving prematurely when he would normally be gearing up for re-election, I don’t see how you can argue that this is business as usual. It’s very obvious something heavy is going on."
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Adams is facing a five-count indictment on fraud, bribery and corruption charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
The mayor, 64, is accused of soliciting illegal campaign donations from foreign entities and falsifying paper trails to cover it up. As part of the plot, he allegedly defrauded taxpayers for $10 million over the past decade and frequently took free or steeply discounted vacations bankrolled by his foreign benefactors.
Adams has said in a video statement that any charges filed against him would be "entirely false, based on lies," and he insinuated that his criticism of the Biden administration's disastrous border policies made him a target for retaliation.
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The mayor’s office says on its website that Wright served in the administration since January 2022, first as deputy mayor of strategic initiatives and then as first deputy mayor starting in January 2023.
"During her time in the administration, she helped launch the first phase of the MyCity portal, a one-stop-shop where New Yorkers can easily apply for and track city services and benefits. She has helped the city deliver on key planks of the Blueprint for Child Care & Early Childhood Education in New York City -- most notably, clearing a backlogged waitlist for vouchers and allowing families of 36,000 children to apply for low-cost, high-quality child care," her bio reads.
Wright, a graduate of Columbia University and Columbia Law School, also "previously served as the first female president and CEO of United Way of New York City," it added.
Fox News’ Alexis McAdams, CB Cotton, Michael Ruiz and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.