Here’s a Look Inside Mayor Adams’ Indictment

On Thursday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams became the first sitting mayor in city history to be indicted on federal charges. The five-count indictment includes conspiracy, wire fraud, bribery, and two counts of solicitation by foreign nationals. 

 

WHAT STORY DO FEDERAL PROSECUTORS TELL ABOUT ADAMS?

 

The 57-page indictment details nearly a decade of corruption starting from Adams’ time as Brooklyn borough president through his tenure as mayor. It alleges that Adams solicited and accepted illegal campaign contributions from Turkish businesspeople and government officials, receiving lavish gifts and foreign donations in exchange for political favors.

 

According to federal prosecutors, Adams not only solicited these illegal donations to his 2021 mayoral campaign, but also received gifts including free flights, luxury hotel stays, expensive meals, and entertainment. In exchange, Adams allegedly pressured city agencies to bend rules for his benefactors. The indictment includes claims that Adams pressured the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) to approve a high-rise Turkish consulate building in Manhattan, bypassing fire inspections ahead of a visit from Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

 

PART 1: BENEFITS

 

Prosecutors allege Adams’ luxurious travel began in 2015 with two trips to Turkey, where he received free business-class tickets. Though Adams reported these trips to New York City’s Conflicts of Interest Board, he failed to disclose subsequent trips, including those paid for by Turkish businesspeople.

 

By 2016, Adams had established a cozy relationship with Turkish Airlines, a company 49% owned by the Turkish government. Throughout 2016 and 2017, Adams and his associates took free flights, including business-class upgrades, to destinations across the globe—India, Sri Lanka, China, Nepal, and France—amounting to over $63,000 in free and reduced travel. 

 

According to the indictment, Adams flew Turkish Airlines even when inconvenient — like when flying from New York to Paris. According to his text message with his partner, he stated, “Transferring here. You know first stop is always instanbul [sic].”

 

During this period, Adams also allegedly stayed at the luxury St. Regis hotel in Istanbul at a heavily discounted rate, paying just a few hundred dollars for a suite normally priced at thousands per night. His trips often involved private yacht tours, luxury cars and high-end meals at upscale restaurants, all facilitated by his connections to Turkish officials.

 

His luxury trips continued throughout 2019 and into 2021, following his mayoral victory. 

 

PART 2: CAMPAIGN DONATIONS

 

Adams is also accused of orchestrating a scheme to exploit New York City’s Matching Funds Program, which is designed to boost small-scale campaign donations by matching them with public funds. The program explicitly prohibits donations from foreign nationals and “straw donors” — that is, individuals who contribute money on behalf of someone else to disguise its true source.

 

Here are a few examples, according to prosecutors: 

 

In November 2018, Adams allegedly met with the wealthy founder of Bahcesehir University at Brooklyn Borough Hall. After this owner offered to contribute funds to his 2021 mayoral campaign, Adams directed a “staffer”— identified by The New York Times as Rana Abbasova — to coordinate the illegal contributions, writing that the businessman “is ready to help. I don’t want his willing to help be waisted [sic]”. 

 

In December 2020, two of Adams’ campaign volunteers allegedly asked an Uzbek businessman to contribute $10,000 to the campaign, citing that this donation would provide influence with Adams. Because the businessman could not directly write a $10,000 check—as it then could not be matched by public funds—the person was directed to reimburse his employees for multiple $2,000 contributions. These straw donations were then matched by public funds.

 

 

This process – where people were directed to donate larger funds through the individual donations of their employees, who were later reimbursed – occurred again in May 2021 and August 2021. In the latter instance, these donations were allegedly funneled through U.S.-based employees of a Turkish University’s American campus. 

 

Adams is accused of accepting support from Reyhan Özgur, who until recently served as Turkish consul general in New York, often through fundraising efforts. After a May 2021 fundraiser failed to generate the donations that the Turkish official had promised, Özgur stated that “he would ‘close the gap’ by obtaining sufficient funds from other sources to reach the promised amount.”

 

Adams’ 2021 campaign wound up with $10 million in taxpayer funding through the Matching Funds Program.  

 

PART 3: THE PAYOFF

 

One of the most prominent examples of corruption detailed in the indictment concerns Adams allegedly intervening with the FDNY in 2021 to assist Turkish officials. 

 

Turkey’s consulate began construction in 2017 of a 36-story building dubbed the “Turkish House,” which would serve as its offices and home for Turkish diplomatic missions. Officials hoped to have the building ready by September 2021, in time for Erdogan to formally open the skyscraper during that year’s United Nations General Assembly. 

 

However, at the end of August 2021, the New York Department of Buildings still had not signed off on the project opening — even with a temporary certificate of occupancy — because the Bureau of Fire Prevention’s Chief could not guarantee the building was safe. 

 

The prosecutors allege that Özgur, the Turkish consulate general, told Adams in a phone call that it was now “his turn” to support them following the many benefits the mayor had received. Adams allegedly responded to Özgur by saying “I know.” The indictment describes how Adams then successfully pressured the FDNY commissioner in messages and personal conversation to secure the approval —even though an FDNY employee who inspected the building told the fire prevention chief that the Turkish House had “major issues” that would result in “an automatic violation order” and that the building was “not safe to occupy.”

 

 

When Adams informed Özgur of the FDNY’s intervention, the official responded that Adams was “a true friend of Turkey,” to which Adams replied “yes even more a true friend of yours.” Prosecutors allege the Özgur continued afterward to provide Adams with lavish benefits, including luxury arrangements for a trip to Ghana that Adams took with his partner only months after the consulate’s opening.

 

 

 

Adams’s campaign spokesman told reporters that the trip to Ghana, which was widely publicized, had been paid for by Adams himself. But the indictment alleges that Adams actually had tickets to Pakistan worth less than $1,500 changed into tickets worth $14,000, taking Adams and his partner to Ghana. The flight had a layover in Istanbul, where Adams was provided escort in a luxury vehicle to a high-end restaurant, drinks, and was even a boat tour—which Adams declined because he had already “done the boat tour a few times.”

 

PART 4: COVER-UP

 

To conceal his alleged crimes, Adams wrote emails to his staff claiming he had paid for the flights he received as gifts. He also allegedly told a staff member that he had left a sum of cash in her desk drawer and suggested she use the money to pay for a flight that he had already flown on for free. 

In 2019, when Adams was planning a possible trip to Turkey, one of his staffers texted him to delete all the text messages between them, to which Adams responded that he always did. 

Adams, a Turkish airlines manager and Abbasova continued to cover up the gifts the mayor received in June 2021, when the Adams staffer asked the airline to charge Adams a realistic price for a free flight he was receiving. When the airline manager suggested he charge Mayor Adams $50, the staffer replied “$50? What? Quote a proper price,” adding that Mayor Adams’ “every step is being watched right now.”