Eric Adams charged with bribery, fraud, soliciting foreign campaign donations

Read the indictment.

The 57-page indictment details actions that stretch back long before Adams became mayor, dating to his time as Brooklyn borough president, an office he assumed in 2014. “Thereafter, for nearly a decade, Adams sought and accepted 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,” the indictment reads. 

News of Adams’ indictment was met with growing calls for his resignation, not just among far-left progressives who he says have opposed his mayoralty from the start, but increasingly more mainstream and some more moderate New York City Democrats, including state Sen. John Liu, Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal and City Council Member Chris Banks.

The indictment alleges that Adams and his staffer and fundraiser knowingly sought illegal campaign donations from noncitizens for both his 2021 and 2025 mayoral campaigns. In exchange for those illegal donations, the indictment alleges that Adams traded face time, stayed silent about the Armenian genocide, appointed an illegal donor to his mayoral transition team and expedited the fire department inspection process for a Turkish government building in New York City. 

Starting in 2016, it alleges, Adams solicited and accepted free and discounted luxury air travel from Turkey’s national airline on multiple separate occasions as part of a senior Turkish official’s effort to gain influence. He also attempted to hide the benefits he received by deleting text messages and paying “a nominal fee to create the appearance of having paid for travel that was in fact heavily discounted.” The indictment also charges that Adams used illegal donations to garner public matching funds. 

Adams defiant

News of the impending indictment was first reported by The New York Times Wednesday night. Federal agents arrived at Gracie Mansion Thursday morning around 6 a.m. 

Later on Thursday morning, a defiant Adams convened a tense press conference at Gracie Mansion as he stood surrounded by Black clergy. He did not appear to be joined by any elected officials. The press conference turned chaotic, as apparent protesters shouted him down from the start, and his supporters shouted to be heard over them. He urged the public to wait and hear “his narrative” following the release of the charges. Supporters Hazel Dukes, president of the NAACP New York State Conference, Rev. Herbert Daughtry, and others voiced their support, also imploring New Yorkers to give the mayor a chance to defend himself.

“We are not surprised. We expected this. This is not surprising to us at all. The actions that have unfolded over the last ten months, the leaks, the commentary, the demonizing,” Adams said. “I ask New Yorkers to wait to hear our defense before making any judgments.”

Detailing the indictment at a Thursday morning press conference, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said Adams has committed “a grave breach of the public trust.” The mayor crossed “bright red lines” again and again, he charged. 

“This was a multi-year scheme to buy favor with a single New York City politician on the rise: Eric Adams,” Williams said.

“This investigation continues. We continue to dig. And we will hold more people accountable," Williams promised, concluding his remarks. He did not take any questions. 

Williams’ press conference struck a sharp contrast to the mayor’s. While Adams’ was punctuated with hecklers and a general sense of chaos, SDNY’s proceeded smoothly and free of interruption, complete with graphics illustrating aspects of the allegations. Seeking perhaps to counter the mayor’s suggestions that the investigation was politically motivated, Williams said the office is focused only “on right and wrong” – not the “right or the left.”

“You are a true friend of Turkey.”

It was previously reported that federal prosecutors were looking into free airline upgrades they believe Adams received from Turkish Airlines, but the unsealed indictment reveals in a new level of detail Adams’ alleged efforts to obtain those benefits and official government action he allegedly took to return their favors – which ranged from free luxury air travel all over the world and comped hotel stays in opulent suites, to free meals and entertainment while traveling. 

The indictment also alleges that Adams knowingly solicited and received straw donations that were facilitated by a Turkish government official, among others.

Prosecutors alleged that free flight tickets and upgrades, hotel discounts and free stays, and other travel benefits that Adams received totaled over $100,000, and that he did not report them on required annual disclosure forms in an effort to conceal them. In one example of what the indictment alleges was an attempt to create a fake paper trail to cover up the gifts, Adams sent emails to his scheduler at Borough Hall directing them to pay for free flights he had already taken on the airline in 2017, saying in one instance that he had left cash to do so in their desk drawer. “I left you the money for the international airline in an envelope in your top desk (drawer). Please send it to them,” Adams wrote in an email to the scheduler. In addition to prosecutors casting doubt on the likelihood of this – given well over $10,000 in cash would have been needed to pay for Adams’ business class tickets on that trip – the indictment also says that airline records confirm that Adams didn’t pay the airline in cash or by other means.

Prosecutors allege that Adams sought and accepted illegal campaign contributions, including through straw donations – the kind of illegal scheme that Adams and his campaign have vehemently denied engaging in in the past. In one alleged arrangement in 2018, a Turkish entrepreneur told an Adams staffer at Borough Hall that he thought he could raise money for the campaign “off the record.” The staffer prodded about how that would work, before the entrepreneur described a straw donor scheme. “I think he wouldn’t get involved in such games. They might cause a big stink later on,” the staffer said in a text message. The staffer added that they would “ask anyways,” and prosecutors allege that Adams later told the staffer to proceed with the illegal plan. 

Among actions that Adams is alleged to have taken on behalf of Turkish benefactors is agreeing to advice from a Turkish government official to no longer associate with a Turkish community center in New York that the official told him was affiliated with a political movement critical of the Turkish government if he wanted to continue receiving support from the Turkish government. Prosecutors also allege that in Sept. 2021, as presumptive mayor, Adams pressured the New York City Fire Department to facilitate the opening of a new high-rise Turkish consulate by fast-tracking a needed safety inspection. With the visit of the Turkish president looming, one of Adams’ Turkish benefactors told the mayor it was “his turn” to repay the favors he’d received by applying pressure to expediting the consulate’s opening. A fire safety department official tasked with overseeing the safety inspection said he’d been told he would lose his job if he didn’t comply. 

When Adams informed a Turkish official that FDNY was drafting a letter to send a highly unusual “conditional letter of no objection” related to the inspection, the official responded in a text “You are Great Eric, we are so happy to hear that … You are a true friend of Turkey." Adams replied, "Yes even more a true friend of yours. You are my brother. I am hear [sic] to help."

As lengthy as the indictment was, the allegations appear to encompass only a portion of the legal trouble surrounding the Adams administration. There are at least four ongoing federal investigations, including the inquiry that led to Adams’ indictment. Over the past couple of weeks, federal authorities have raided the homes, seized devices, and issued subpoenas to a number of top mayoral officials, including then-Police Commissioner Edward Caban, schools Chancellor David Banks (who announced Tuesday that he would retire at the end of the year), Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks III, senior adviser Tim Pearson and First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, among others.