Mayor Adams is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery and to receiving campaign contributions from foreign nationals, wire fraud and bribery in a federal indictment unsealed Thursday as part of a City Hall federal corruption investigation.
Sources familiar with the matter told the News Wednesday they stem from an investigation by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office that has scrutinized allegations that Turkey’s government funneled illegal donations into Adams’ 2021 campaign coffers. Earlier this month, it was revealed that probe is also looking at communications between Adams and the governments of five other foreign countries.
The charges stem from what federal investigators describe as a scheme that spanned “nearly a decade,” starting when Adams became Brooklyn borough president in 2014, that involved him seeking and accepting “improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him.”
They say Adams then proceeded to solicit and accept illegal straw donations from Turkish nationals and, once he became mayor, his “foreign-national benefactors sought to cash in on their corrupt relationships with him” by seeking and securing favors from him.
Adams has kept this favor trading relationship going while mayor, and has continued soliciting illegal straw donations from Turkish nationals for his reelection campaign, according to the indictment.
The feds say that his campaign managed to steal public matching funds as part of this scheme by falsely certifying illegal donations to the campaign. “As a result of those false certifications, ADAMS’s 2021 mayoral campaign received more than $10,000,000 in public funds,” the indictment says.
Adams has professed his innocence.
“I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target — and a target I became,” Adams said in a video statement late Wednesday after news broke that he had been indicted in the long-brewing corruption probe. “If I am charged, I am innocent and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit.”
Several elected officials and advocates have called on Adams to resign in light of the indictment, claiming he can’t oversee city government while defending himself in a criminal federal case.
Last November, the feds seized multiple phones and electronic devices from the mayor as part of their corruption probe.
Adams is the first New York City mayor in the modern era to face criminal charges while in office. His administration has been reeling in recent weeks from additional investigations and a series of high-profile resignations.
This is a developing story; check back fpr updates
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