Adams says he doesn’t remember meeting Harlem woman indicted in campaign straw donor scheme

Mayor Adams said he doesn’t remember everyone he meets when asked why his City Hall team previously said he didn’t know an indicted Harlem woman he met with face-to-face for an hour in May 2021 to discuss ongoing problems at her Harlem housing complex.

Two years before six people were indicted as part of a conspiracy to funnel illegal donations to his 2021 City Hall run, Adams met with one of the defendants, Millicent Redick, in her apartment at Esplanade Gardens, a sprawling six-building Mitchell-Lama co-op in Harlem. Six of her fellow residents also attended.

In July 2023 after she and the other defendants in the straw donor case were charged, Adams’ press team said the mayor knew only one person indicted as part of the scheme, Dwayne Montgomery, a former cop who ultimately pleaded guilty and was hit with a $500 fine and 200 hours of community service.

While it “may be challenging really for people to understand,” Adams said he meets with hundreds of people daily and doesn’t remember them all.

“I don’t remember everyone who’s in the room,” he said at a City Hall press conference. “Let’s be very clear what the district attorney made clear: We had no involvement in what was wrongdoing. I meet hundreds of people every single day.”

Redick was surprised at Adams’ comment Monday. “Amazing,” she said. “The meeting at my apartment was quite intimate with myself and six of my friends. It was not your typical generic or unremarkable campaign event.”

The Manhattan DA’s charges against the people involved in the illegal donations center around Montgomery, a former NYPD inspector, and Shamsuddin Riza, a contractor, gathering illegal straw donations in an effort to cash in on contracts once Adams was elected. Adams has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

In addition to Montgomery’s plea, Riza pleaded guilty and received three years probation. Two officials with EcoSafety Consultants also pleaded guilty. Redick hasn’t pleaded guilty.

Prosectors on the case offered her a misdemeanor plea with no fine or jail time in May, and even mulled a plea to a noncriminal violation, but she has so far declined the deal and insists she did nothing wrong.

The meeting with Adams came about after years of frustration Redick, a retired accountant, and many other residents in Esplanade Gardens have harbored over poor conditions stemming from a troubled renovation at the complex. Redick has lived there since 1968.

To arrange the sitdown, she turned to Riza, a friend of her late husband for whom she provided accounting services. Riza told The News that he in turn reached out to Montgomery.

“I said she’s a very good person and what’s happened to the seniors there is a shame,” Riza said. “He said, ‘No problem.’”

That led, in May 2021, to Adams, who was then Brooklyn borough president and a candidate for mayor, and David Johnson, a then-campaign aide and currently a special assistant Adams, arriving at her front door. The meeting lasted about an hour, according to Redick and a friend who also attended.

Redick said Adams made “general promises” there, and afterward she and her friends agreed to raise money for the mayor.

Redick donated $500 to Adams that August. She says she also collected contributions from residents and turned them into money orders.

Redick says she sent copies of the money orders to Riza but held on to the originals. Once she learned the campaign was no longer accepting donations, she refunded the money orders to the people who donated.

The indictment alleges Riza sent her two checks totaling $3,100 to buy money orders to further the straw donor scheme. But Redick says the checks from Riza were payment for unrelated bookkeeping work she did for him. Riza backed up Redick’s account to The News.

After Adams’ election Redik and othjer tenants complained his administration has done little to address the problems in the complex.