Federal prosecutor charges Mayor Eric Adams with bribery, soliciting contributions from foreign nationals, and wire fraud

By Greg B. Smith, Yoav Gonen and Gwynne Hogan
This article was originally published on Sept. 26, 2024, 11:51 a.m. EDT by THE CITY

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams on Thursday unsealed a 57-page indictment that accuses Mayor Eric Adams of performing favors for Turkish foreign nationals after accepting more than $100,000 in lavish international plane tickets and accommodations, as well as soliciting illegal donations from them. 

Those donations in turn generated public matching funds for his 2021 mayoral campaign — part of a $10 million pot of government dollars.

The five-count indictment of Adams, the first mayor of New York City to ever be charged with a crime while in office, includes allegations against him of wire fraud, bribery and receiving contributions from foreign nationals that he knew to be illegal, according to prosecutors.

At a press conference announcing the indictment Thursday morning, Williams spoke alongside James E. Dennehy, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office, and the city’s Department of Investigation Commissioner, Jocelyn Strauber.

“This was a multi-year scheme to buy favor with a single New York politician on the rise: Eric Adams,” Williams said, describing the allegations as a “grave breach of the public’s trust.”

“Mayor Adams…broke the laws that are designed to ensure that officials like him serve not the highest bidder, not a foreign bidder and certainly not a foreign power,” Williams said. “These are bright red lines, and we allege that the mayor crossed them again and again for years.”

Adams spoke to reporters Thursday morning outside Gracie Mansion, flanked by longtime supporters including a mentor, Rev. Herbert Daughtry, and Dr. Hazel Dukes, the former president of the NAACP. The indictment, he said, was “expected,” and he vowed not to heed a growing chorus of elected officials telling him to resign.

“This is not surprising to us at all, the actions that have unfolded over the last 10 months, the leaks, commentary, the demonizing. This did not surprise us that we reached this day. And I ask New Yorkers to wait to hear our defense before making any judgment,” he said. 

“My attorneys will take care of the case, so I can take care of this city. My day to day will not change,” he added. “I will continue to do the job that I was elected to do.”

Alex Spiro, an attorney for Adams, sought to diminish the charges after reviewing the indictment Thursday afternoon. Speaking to reporters outside Gracie Mansion, he said the plane tickets cited by prosecutors were mostly upgrades regularly offered to VIP passengers like Adams and that of $10 million in matching funds received by the mayor’s 2021 campaign, just $26,000 came from Turkish donors.

“There’s no corruption, this is not a real case, we’re going to see everybody in court,” he said. The court set Adams’ arraignment for noon Friday before Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker.

The foreign nationals, including an unnamed “senior official in the Turkish diplomatic establishment,” raised much of this through illegal “straw” donations made by benefactors in other people’s names. The New York Times has identified him as former consul general Reyhan Ozgur. The officials also showered the peripatetic mayor with more than $100,000 in free airfare, hotel stays and “luxurious entertainment” on trips around the world, the indictment alleges. 

In several instances spelled out in the indictment, Adams returned the favor. Per instruction from his Turkish benefactors, he agreed not to talk about the Armenian genocide on its anniversary in 2022. And, years earlier, he stopped associating with a Turkish community center run by dissidents who oppose Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.

But the most serious action taken at Turkey’s request occurred in September 2021 when Adams pressured fire officials to allow a new 36-story building housing the Turkish consulate to open without a fire safety inspection in time for a visit by Erdogan. Adams was still Brooklyn borough president at the time, but had won the Democratic primary for mayor by a razor-thin margin and was almost certain to win the November general election.

A letter from an FDNY fire inspector included in the indictment concluded after reviewing paperwork submitted by a contractor working with the Turkish government on the project: “this building is not safe to occupy.” The indictment notes the building would have failed the inspection.

Adams was not arrested but is expected to surrender to federal authorities soon, to be arraigned in federal court. It’s based on a lengthy investigation by the FBI and the city Department of Investigation.

Adams’ campaign officials have repeatedly insisted they and the mayor had no knowledge that any of these contributions were illegal. Williams said the evidence will show Adams “took these contributions even though he knew they were illegal.” 

The indictment made it clear his benefactors expected something in return — and that Adams granted their wishes.

“Adams increased his fundraising by accepting these concealed illegal donations at the cost of giving his secret patrons the undue influence over him that the law tries to prevent,” the indictment alleges, adding that the mayor was “providing favorable treatment in exchange for the illicit benefits he received.”

Prosecutors also described Adams’ efforts to cover his tracks, noting that he directed others to create fake records and a false paper trail to make it seem he was paying for travel perks that he was actually getting for free.

And it appears that he deliberately deleted messages with others involved in his alleged misconduct, including one instance in which he assured a co-conspirator “in writing that he ‘always’ deleted her messages.”

Business Class Seats, Luxury Suites

The alleged freebies date back to at least 2016, when Adams served as Brooklyn borough president, with Adams and his companions receiving free or discounted air fare to France, China, Sri Lanka, India, Hungary and Turkey.

Perhaps the most expensive trip that Adams took for free — valued at more than $41,000 —  included his son, Jordan Coleman, and his longtime volunteer liaison to the Chinese-American community, Winnie Greco, according to the indictment. The papers refer to Coleman as a “close relative” and to Greco as an “Adams liaison.”

Their weeks-long excursion in July and August 2017 took them to France, Turkey, Sri Lanka and China — flying business class at no charge on Turkish Airlines.

That trip included a heavily discounted stay in the Bentley Suite of the St. Regis hotel in Istanbul — where Adams and Coleman were photographed with two businessmen, including a promoter mentioned throughout the indictment, Arda Sayiner

The indictment says Adams paid $600 for two nights at the luxurious suite when the regular price would have been about $7,000.

Just months later, Adams and Greco traveled to Nepal through Istanbul and Beijing, according to the indictment, for which they accepted free business class seats on Turkish Airlines worth over $16,000 for a portion of the travel. 

Steven G. Brill, an attorney for Greco, said she “paid her own way to travel on those trips and did so in the capacity as an aide to then Brooklyn Borough President.”

Adams made his penchant for Turkish Airlines clear to his partner, Department of Education administrator Tracey Collins, in text messages cited in the indictment papers. 

Collins also benefited from some of the upgraded or discounted travel over the years, the indictment says, courtesy of an airline manager, identified by The New York Times as Cenk Ocal. 

She also allegedly enjoyed free meals, a boat tour and a two-night stay at the Cosmopolitan Suite of the St. Regis on a trip to Istanbul with Adams in 2019, courtesy of Sayiner.

When Collins expressed surprise that Adams’ trip to France, Sri Lanka and China included a stop in Turkey, Adams responded that Istanbul was simply a transfer stop.

“You know first stop is always ins.tanbul [sic],” he texted, according to the indictment.

When Collins later asked Adams about planning a trip to Easter Island off the coast of Chile, he made her call Turkish Airlines to double check whether the airline had routes between New York and Chile, the indictment says.

Adams failed to disclose nearly all of the travel benefits he received in annual financial disclosure forms that he filed with the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, according to the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office.

He also created a “fake paper trail,” sometimes with the help of his staff, to make it appear as though he had paid for travel benefits he got for free — such as his 2017 flights on Turkish Airlines, the indictment says.

In the early years of his trips to Turkey, Adams was asked by the unnamed Turkish official to stop associating with a Brooklyn community center that was hostile to Turkey’s government if he wanted the “support” from the Turkish government to continue.

The indictment notes, “ADAMS acquiesced.”

Hunting for Matching Funds

In court papers, Williams described measures he alleges Adams took to extract campaign contributions for his mayoral race from Turkish citizens. Foreign nationals are forbidden under federal law from contributing funds to U.S. elections.

In November 2018, Adams and an aide who served as a liaison to Turkey and nearby countries, Anna Abbasova, met at Brooklyn Borough Hall with a “wealthy Turkish national” who owned a for-profit education group that operated universities in Turkey and the United States, the indictment says.

Adams had met with the businessperson, Enver Yucel, on a December 2015 trip to Istanbul, records show.

During the 2018 meeting, Yucel — who is identified in the indictment as “Businessman-1” — offered to contribute money toward Adams’ 2021 campaign for mayor, the indictment says.

Despite knowing that Yucel was a Turkish national who couldn’t legally donate to his campaign, the indictment says, Adams ordered Abbasova to see it through, writing shortly after the meeting that Yucel was “ready to help.”

“I don’t want his willing to help be waisted [sic],” Adams wrote, according to the indictment. 

The indictment says that the plan didn’t fully develop until August 2021, when Abbasova, Sayiner, and the president of the Turkish university in the United States discussed a plan to allegedly funnel Yucel’s donations through American citizens and green card-holders.

“ADAMS approved the plan, knowing that [Yucel] was a Turkish citizen,” the indictment says.

Although the organizers had promised to raise at least $25,000 under the scheme, just five donations of $2,000 each were ultimately made on Sept. 27, 2021 — coming from employees and officials at Bay Atlantic University in Washington, D.C., as THE CITY previously reported. 

The indictment says Yucel reimbursed $6,000 of the $10,000 in donations. 

It goes on to say that when Yucel visited New York City in November 2022, after Adams was already serving as mayor, Adams allegedly declined to meet with him, stating that “they didn’t keep their word.”

The indictment says that’s a reference to Yucel’s failure to contribute the full $25,000.

It also alleges that Adams knowingly made false statements to the city Campaign Finance Board when requesting and ultimately receiving more than $10 million in public matching funds for his 2021 campaign. 

As a result, Adams may face a steep financial penalty — and his campaign could be thrown out of the matching funds program entirely. Adams has already requested tens of thousands of dollars in matching funds for his 2025 campaign, under the CFB program that provides $8 for every dollar donated by New York City residents, up to $250.

In multiple instances, including supporters convicted in cases brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Adams backers steered large sums through multiple straw donors to maximize public dollars the campaign would receive.

The indictment alleges that knowingly collected illegal donations from foreign sources and continued to solicit straw donations in his re-election campaign.

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Federal prosecutor charges Mayor Eric Adams with bribery, soliciting contributions from foreign nationals, and wire fraud was first posted on September 28, 2024 at 1:16 pm.