New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been charged with accepting bribes and soliciting illegal foreign donations to his election campaign, according to a federal indictment that was unsealed on Thursday. He is the first sitting New York mayor in modern history to face criminal charges.
The 57-page indictment is the culmination of a long-running investigation into Adams’s 2021 election campaign and his alleged ties to Turkish government officials. It has included weeks of searches by federal agents, has led to the resignation of high-ranking officials and has thrown the city’s government into crisis.
Federal agents raided the mayor’s home, Gracie Mansion, on Thursday morning and seized Adams’s mobile phone.
The mayor is not required to step down in light of the indictment, but he may come under political pressure to do so.
In a pre-recorded video he released on Wednesday evening, Adams, 64, denied all the charges against him and described them as “entirely false” and “based on lies”. “I will fight these injustices with every ounce of my strength and my spirit,” he declared.
Here is more about Adams and the indictment:
Who is Eric Adams?
A member of the Democratic Party, Adams was previously an officer in the New York City Transit Police and then the New York City Police Department, retiring in 2006 with the rank of captain after 20 years of service.
Since 2022, he has served as the 110th mayor of New York City after winning an election held in November 2021. It was a victory he has repeatedly claimed was “ordained by God”.
After pledging to crack down on rising crime and restore New York to calm in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, Adams coasted to victory to become the second Black mayor in the city’s history. David Dinkins was the first, serving in the early 1990s.
As New York City’s mayor, Adams has implemented a zero-tolerance policy towards homeless individuals sleeping in subway cars, and has increased the police presence in the city’s subway system.
Now, almost three years into his first term, Adams is faced with federal charges that could jeopardise his office and threaten the future of his political career.
Calls for his resignation have been mounting for the past few weeks.
Corruption scandals have previously led to the resignations of two New York City mayors: Jimmy Walker in 1932 and William O’Dwyer in 1950. But Adams is the first mayor in New York City to be indicted while in office.
“I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target – and a target I became. If I am charged, I am innocent and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit,” Adams said, responding to the news on Wednesday night.
What has Eric Adams been accused of?
Adams is facing five separate criminal charges, including those relating to bribery, soliciting illegal foreign donations, wire fraud and accepting luxury travel and lavish gifts from wealthy foreign businesspeople and a Turkish government official.
At a press conference on Thursday morning, the Southern District of New York Attorney General Damian Williams said Adams had sought and received illegal foreign and corporate contributions to his campaign funds and received more than $100,000 worth of luxury travel benefits from foreign businesspeople and officials. “The mayor had a duty to disclose these benefits but, year after year after year, he kept the public in the dark,” Williams said.
Williams unveiled a list of luxury travel benefits, including airline upgrades and luxury hotel rooms, that Adams had received between 2016 and 2021. He added that Adams had “created paper trails to try to cover up the benefits he received”.
In 2021, the attorney general alleged, Adams pressured New York City Fire Department officials to sign off on a new high-rise building for the Turkish Consulate General despite safety concerns. This, the charges against Adams allege, was “payback” for all the benefits he had received. “Adams abused his privilege and broke the law,” Williams said.
The investigation into Adams’s activities is ongoing, he added.
Is anyone else being investigated?
Over the past few days, amid sprawling federal probes, Adams’s police and health commissioners, Edward Caban and Ashwin Vasan, schools chancellor David Banks and chief counsel Lisa Zornberg have all resigned.
Caban’s phone was seized on September 12 as part of a federal investigation and he was forced to resign. Days later, City Hall’s top lawyer Zornberg resigned, saying she “could no longer serve effectively”. A week later, Banks announced his retirement at the end of the year, stepping down from his role as head of the nation’s largest public school system, just days after federal investigators searched his home and seized his mobile phones under a federal search warrant.
Federal investigators have also seized the mobile phones of some of Adams’s closest advisers, including Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks III and First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright. Officers have raided the homes of some of these advisers.
The first sign that federal authorities were investigating people close to Adams came last November, when agents searched the home of one of his top fundraisers, Brianna Suggs.
What does it mean to be indicted?
According to the US Department of Justice, an indictment is a process during which a person receives a “formal notice that it is believed that they committed a crime”.
The indictment informs the person of the charges against them.
It takes place after a grand jury examines all potential evidence to decide whether a crime was committed. If the jury decides there is enough evidence, an indictment will be issued.
In this case, the mayor is expected to have several days to turn himself in to authorities, according to a CNN report.
Adams has made it clear that he will not step down. “I put the people of New York before party and politics. Now, If I am charged, many may say I should resign because I cannot manage the city while fighting the case. Make no mistake, you elected me to lead this city and lead it, I will,” Adams said in his statement on Wednesday.
Could he be forced to resign?
Yes. New York State Governor Kathy Hochul has the power to remove New York City’s mayor from office.
Hochul, whose spokesperson stated Thursday morning that it would be “premature to comment” on Adams’s case, has the authority to suspend the mayor for up to 30 days and subsequently remove him “after service upon him of a copy of the charges and an opportunity to be heard in his defence”.
But the state governor’s power to replace New York City’s mayor has not been exercised in recent times. The most recent precedent was in 1931, when Governor Franklin D Roosevelt held 14 days of hearings into the misconduct of Mayor Jimmy Walker, who eventually resigned in 1932.
Therefore, it is unclear if Hochul will exercise this power, or how.
If Adams does decide to resign before the end of his term in December 2025, the city’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams, would become acting mayor and a special election would be scheduled.
That election could attract several candidates, some of whom have already announced their intention to run against Adams in next year’s Democratic primary.
The next normal election is scheduled to be held on November 4, 2025.
What have been the reactions to the indictment?
Since the indictment was announced, a growing number of politicians have been urging Adams to resign, including at least 10 New York City Council members and several other lawmakers, among them Council members Carmen De La Rosa, Tiffany Caban and Robert Holden.
Members of the New York State Assembly including Robert Carroll and Zohran Kwame Mamdani, along with New York’s US Congressional Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have also pressed for the mayor to resign.
I do not see how Mayor Adams can continue governing New York City.
The flood of resignations and vacancies are threatening gov function. Nonstop investigations will make it impossible to recruit and retain a qualified administration.
For the good of the city, he should resign.…
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 25, 2024