Retired police captain becomes first sitting mayor of New York City to face federal charges.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted amid multiple corruption probes into his administration, US media outlets have reported.
The charge or charges against Adams, one of the most powerful city leaders on the planet, were not immediately clear late on Wednesday as the indictment was under seal.
The New York Times, citing people with knowledge of the matter, reported that federal investigators were focused on whether Adams and his campaign conspired with Turkey to receive illegal foreign donations.
Adams has touted his ties with the Turkish community in New York and spoken of visiting Turkey multiple times, as well as meeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan while he served as Brooklyn borough president.
In a video released on Wednesday night, Adams denied wrongdoing.
“My fellow New Yorkers, it is now my belief that the federal government intends to charge me with federal crimes. If so, these charges will be entirely false, based on lies,” he said.
“But they would not be surprises. I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you that I would be a target. And a target I became.”
Lawyers for Adams did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The indictment comes after the FBI seized Adams’s electronic devices in November after agents approached the mayor and his security detail in a dramatic scene that played out on a New York City street.
A slew of top city officials, including NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban and New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, have resigned in recent weeks amid investigations targeting the mayor’s inner circle.
The latest development marks a stunning fall for Adams, the son of a house cleaner and a former NYPD captain, who cast himself as the city’s “first blue-collar mayor” and the “face of the new Democratic Party.”
After pledging to crack down on rising crime and restore New York City to normality in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, Adams coasted to victory in the 2021 mayoral race to become the second Black mayor in the city’s history.
Adams, who is expected to face a tough primary in his bid for re-election in 2025, does not have to resign because of the indictment but faced immediate calls to step down from his Democratic Party rivals.
“Mayor Adams, like all New Yorkers, deserves due process, the presumption of innocence, and his day in court,” New York City Comptroller Brad Lander said in a post X.
“However, it is clear that defending himself against serious federal charges will require a significant amount of the time and attention needed to govern this great city. The most appropriate path forward is for him to step down so that New York City can get the full focus its leadership demands.”
Hours before news of the indictment became public, US House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became the first national-level Democrat to call on Adams to step down, citing “nonstop investigations” and the “flood of resignations and vacancies”.
Adams fired back at Ocasio-Cortez in a statement, accusing her of engaging in “phoney politics.”
“For anyone who self-righteously claims people charged with serious crimes should not be in jail to now say that the second Black mayor of New York should resign because of rumours and innuendo – without even a single charge being filed – is the height of hypocrisy,” Adams said.