New York City Mayor Eric Adams received more than $100,000 worth of free plane tickets and luxury hotel stays from wealthy Turkish nationals and at least one government official in a nearly decadelong corruption scheme, according to a 57-page federal indictment unsealed Thursday.
In return for free travel benefits and illegal campaign contributions, Adams performed favors for his foreign benefactors, including pressuring the New York Fire Department to allow a Turkish consulate building to open despite serious safety concerns, the indictment says.
The alleged international pay-to-play scheme began after Adams became the Brooklyn borough president in 2014 and helped to underwrite his successful mayoral campaign seven years later, the indictment says. It continued into this year, even after federal officers seized Adams’ electronic devices and raided the home of his chief fundraiser, according to the indictment.
“This was a multiyear scheme to buy favor with a single New York City politician on the rise,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said at a news conference.
Charged with five counts, Adams, 64, becomes the first sitting New York City mayor to be indicted in the modern era.
The details of the criminal case come at a time of extraordinary turmoil for the Adams administration. In the past two weeks alone, the city’s police commissioner, top lawyer and schools chancellor have announced their resignations.
Adams, in a defiant address shortly after the indictment was made public, vowed to fight the charges and stay on as mayor.
“We are not surprised. We expected this,” Adams said. “I ask New Yorkers to wait to hear our defense before making any judgments.”
Several prominent politicians have called on the Democrat to resign, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and state Sen. John Liu, D-Queens.
But the most powerful political figures in New York — Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader; House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries; and Gov. Kathy Hochul — have not joined the others in calling for Adams to step down.
Hochul, who has the power to remove the mayor, released a lengthy statement late Thursday in which she stopped short of urging Adams to leave office.
“While I review my options and obligations as the governor of New York, I expect the mayor to take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well-served by their leaders,” Hochul said. “We must give New Yorkers confidence that there is steady, responsible leadership at every level of government.”
The mayor is scheduled to be arraigned Friday on charges that include bribery, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national.
“The indictment of a sitting mayor is not just another headline,” said James Dennehy, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York field office. “It is a stinging reminder that no one is above the law or beyond reproach, and it serves as a sobering moment for all of us who place our trust in elected officials.”
The indictment centers on Adams’ relationship with a handful of well-connected Turkish nationals: a senior diplomatic official, a promoter, a university chairman, an airline manager and a luxury hotel owner.
They provided Adams with free travel and entertainment benefits as well as illegal campaign cash, according to federal prosecutors.
As he was locked in the 2021 mayor’s race, Adams and his staff worked to disguise the foreign money by funneling it through U.S. citizens, the indictment says. His campaign received more than $10 million in matching public funds as a result of the false certifications, according to the indictment.
From 2016 to 2021, he received free business class tickets or upgrades on seven trips to India, France, China, Hungary, Ghana and Turkey and other countries — a value of more than $123,000, the indictment says.
Ahead of one trip to Istanbul, an Adams staffer requested that the Turkish airline manager charge him a “real” price to conceal the travel gift, the indictment says.
“How much should I charge?” the airline manager asked in June 2021, a few weeks before the Democratic primary.
“His every step is being watched right now,” the Adams staffer replied, according to the indictment. “$1000 or so. Let it be somewhat real.”
Prosecutors say Adams kept fake paper trails and deleted messages to hide his misconduct — in one instance assuring a co-conspirator he “always” deleted her messages.
In September 2021, the Turkish government official told Adams it was “his turn” to support Turkey after the official had helped arrange straw donations to his campaign, the indictment says. The official insisted that a new Turkish consular building, a 36-story skyscraper, be opened in time for a high-profile visit by Turkey’s president.
But there was a problem: It would have failed a fire inspection. Adams began pressuring the then-fire commissioner to do what was necessary for the building to get approval to open, the indictment says. Soon the official responsible for assessing the safety of the building was told he would lose his job if he failed to approve the skyscraper, according to the indictment.
When Adams delivered the news that the building would be approved to open in time, the Turkish official responded with effusive praise, it says.
“You are Great Eric, we are so happy to hear that,” he wrote, according to the indictment. “You are a true friend of Turkey.”
Adams offered a similar sentiment in his reply, it says.
“Yes even more a true friend of yours,” he wrote, according to the indictment. “You are my brother. I am hear [sic] to help.”
Adams’ foreign benefactors celebrated his election victory two months later, according to the indictment. The promoter reached out to Adams and others saying he would soon be president of the U.S., it says.
“The president is our brother from now on, sir,” the promoter wrote to the Turkish university owner, according to the indictment. “May it be auspicious for all of us.”
“He is most likely going to assign me as a representative, sir,” the promoter added, it says. “I’m going to go and talk to our elders in Ankara about how we can turn this into an advantage for our country’s lobby.”
The Turkish Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Adams’ lawyer, Alex Spiro, told reporters that the indictment left him with a sense that prosecutors knew the case was overblown.
“You could almost picture them trying to cobble this together and try to tell a story so that they could say, ‘corruption, corruption’ at a press conference,” Spiro said.
The Adams administration still faces other federal investigations. Investigators working a separate probe searched homes and seized phones belonging to multiple top officials close to Adams this month. Police Commissioner Edward Caban, who was among those whose phones were seized, resigned Sept. 12.
Authorities also seized the phone of Caban’s twin brother, James Caban, a former police officer who owns a nightclub security business. Federal investigators were looking into whether bars and clubs in midtown Manhattan and Queens paid James Caban to act as a police liaison and whether those clubs were then afforded special treatment by local precincts, according to sources familiar with the matter.
There is also a public corruption investigation and another federal probe that resulted in a search of homes belonging to Adams’ director of Asian affairs.
Williams, the U.S. attorney, said the foreign bribery and campaign finance investigation is not over. “We continue to dig, and we will hold more people accountable,” he said.
FBI agents appeared to make that clear hours before the indictment was unsealed, when they descended on Adams’ home, Gracie Mansion, in the predawn darkness. The agents seized Adams’ phone for the second time, according to his lawyer.
“They send a dozen agents to pick up a phone when we would have happily turned it in,” Spiro said.
He described the law enforcement action as “an effort to create a spectacle.”
The FBI declined to comment.