Gifts from Frank Carone’s wife to Mayor Adams’ partner highlight power quartet’s close ties

Frank Carone has been a near-constant presence in Mayor Adams’ political and personal life since 2013.

That year, Carone, an attorney and veteran political powerbroker in the city, helped clear the field for Adams to be elected Brooklyn borough president, a post that became a perch for him to launch his successful 2021 mayoral run.

Ever since, Carone has remained a close friend and confidant to Adams, serving as his first chief of staff until late 2022, when he left City Hall to chair his reelection campaign and launch a lobbying firm representing private interests, some of which have business before the mayor’s administration.

Their respective partners, Diana Carone and Tracey Collins, have also been friends for a decade, with Carone’s wife giving the mayor’s girlfriend, who’s a senior  Education Department official, gifts worth thousands of dollars last year, according to documents obtained by the Daily News and people familiar with their relationship.

Diana Carone’s gifts to Collins, Adams’ longtime partner, totaled between $5,000 and $55,000 in 2023, per Collins’ annual financial disclosure, which offers only ranges as opposed to exact dollar figures. The disclosure, which Collins is required to file as a senior city government official, describes the gifts from Diana Carone as being for “leisure activities.” It doesn’t specify when or where the outings took place.

There’s no indication the gifts violate any laws. But government ethics watchdogs say their timing — coming as Frank Carone’s firm was already representing private entities with city government business interests — creates a situation that highlights why they believe laws around gifts to public officials should be stricter.

There are laws on the books barring spouses of lobbyists from treating city officials with gifts. However, Carone and his Oaktree Solutions firm’s employees did not become registered lobbyists until this year.  Once Carone and his employees registered as lobbyists, his wife became barred from giving any gifts to Collins.

Collins, who works as a senior adviser to the Education Department’s deputy chancellor of school leadership, didn’t return calls or texts last week. Diana Carone declined to discuss the matter.

Fabien Levy, Adams’ spokesman, emailed a statement saying Collins and Diana Carone are “longtime friends” and that the gifts are “associated with activities they shared as friends” throughout 2023. Levy didn’t elaborate on the activities or specify the exact monetary value of the gifts.

Frank Carone referred comment to his spokesman Stu Loeser, who wouldn’t specify the exact value of the gifts, but said they covered expenses Diana Carone picked up for Collins when they went “places together,” including fundraisers for Citymeals on Wheels, a nonprofit Diana Carone serves on the board of that provides food for senior citizens. Loeser wouldn’t say whether Diana Carone has continued to give Collins gifts in 2024, but confirmed the pair have been friends for at least a decade.

The gifts to Collins came after Carone left City Hall in late 2022. Within days of exiting the administration, Carone confirmed Oaktree had picked up multiple clients with business interests before the city, including real estate powerhouses SL Green, Related Cos. and the Durst Organization, as well as Northwell, New York’s largest health care provider.

City ethics law prohibits the spouse of a lobbyist from giving “any gift which has any value whatsoever” to “any public servant.”

Carone, though, wasn’t a registered lobbyist in 2023. He told Politico shortly after leaving City Hall he was only providing advice to his clients with city business and would potentially register as a lobbyist later. On Jan. 1, 2024, Carone and several Oaktree employees formally registered to lobby both city and state officials on behalf of private interests, including ones vying for Education Department funding, city filings show.

Rachel Fauss, senior policy adviser at the Reinvent Albany watchdog group, said the situation underscores why she believes the law needs to be tightened so the spouse gift ban also covers consultants who advise and represent private firms with city business dealings.

“When you have people who are trying to influence the city, even if they aren’t registered lobbyists, and they or their spouses are giving gifts of a big size like this to city officials, it doesn’t look good,” Fauss said.

Conflicts of Interest Board Executive Director Carolyn Miller, whose agency enforces city ethics law, declined to comment, citing confidentiality protocols barring her from opining on specific activities outside of enforcement actions.

Among the dozens of clients that Oaktree has registered to lobby Adams administration officials in 2024 is NOLA, a company seeking funding for a “STEM education program” in the city, public filings say. As part of that contract, Oaktree is being paid $10,000 monthly to lobby Sheena Wright, Adams’ first deputy mayor, who is city Schools Chancellor David Banks’ longtime partner.

Oaktree has also this year lobbied for Big Dreams Child Care Center, a Brooklyn day care. Oaktree’s public disclosures don’t yet list any specific city officials it has lobbied on behalf of Big Dreams, but the contract relates to “education” and “budget” matters, paperwork says.

Collins has worked at the Education Department for decades, mostly as a principal, per payroll records. After Adams became mayor, Collins was promoted to her senior adviser post in July 2022.

The school leadership division where Collins serves as a senior adviser oversees all of the city’s school district superintendents as well as the Education Department’s literacy efforts. Department spokesman Nathaniel Styer said Collins doesn’t have any direct authority over agency contracts with private vendors, though.

With Cayla Bamberger