Feds Say NYC Mayor Eric Adams Got $123,000 in Luxury Travel, $10 Million in Illegal Campaign Funds, and One Fire Hazard of a Skyscraper

By Dave Levitan | September 26, 2024 | 9:45am

Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

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Feds Say NYC Mayor Eric Adams Got $123,000 in Luxury Travel, $10 Million in Illegal Campaign Funds, and One Fire Hazard of a Skyscraper

New York City mayor Eric Adams has been charged with five federal counts of bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations, all connected to his apparently deep and meaningful connection with the country (and money) of Turkey. The indictment was unsealed on Thursday, and, well, hoo boy.

First, the campaign funds: New York has a matching campaign donations program that “matches small-dollar contributions from individual City residents with up to eight times their amount in public funds, to give New Yorkers a greater voice in elections.” The government alleges that Adams used those matching funds on “straw donations” from illegal sources. “As a result… Adams’s 2021 mayoral campaign received more than $10,000,000 in public funds,” the indictment reads.

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Then there’s the travel. Adams began getting cozy with what seems like a collection of Turkish officials and businesspeople before his stint as mayor, and they seem to have long acted as a sort of personal travel agency for him. Stays in expensive suites at fancy hotels, repeated upgrades to first class on flights, and more — A table in the indictment lists seven trips over five years that the government says Adams failed to disclose, worth at least $123,000.

The arrangements for all this, per the indictment, did not tend to be subtle:

And finally, the skyscraper: the Turkish government built a 36-story consulate building known as the Turkish House, and hoped to open it in 2021 in time for the Turkish president’s visit. In at least one phone call between a “Turkish Official” and Adams, the government alleges, the former told the latter it was his “turn” to help their country in return for all the support they had offered — the ask was to smooth the way to a fire department occupancy permit, in spite of some, uh, issues with the building.

“They have some major issues like central station and fan shutdowns which would be an automatic violation order,” wrote an FDNY employee responsible for the building’s inspection in an email to the Fire Prevention Chief. “Aside from that, he gave us a list with over 60 defects [emphasis mine] and some of them list 5-10 problems in each one.” The employee notes that more than 20 defects would generally result in a violation order, and in general they said that “this building is not safe to occupy.”

Within another day or two, Adams had managed to secure the occupancy certificate.

The mayor’s mansion was searched early this morning, and later a press conference, Adams said he would not resign. Read the full indictment here.