New York City Mayor Eric Adams was indicted on Sept. 26 on bribery and corruption charges relating to matters stretching back as far as 2014.
The charges include accepting campaign contributions from a foreign national, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and federal program bribery.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks during a news conference outside Gracie Mansion, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in New York. AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura
Many of the charges stem from an alleged influence scheme involving a Turkish government official who sought regulatory help to open a Turkish consulate in Manhattan. Adams allegedly waived safety inspections to allow the 36-story building to open; the building would have failed inspection, the indictment says.
In return, it is alleged Adams received free flights and upgrades totaling tens of thousands of dollars, luxury hotel accommodation, meals, and a boat tour, among other perks.
“He told the public he received no gifts, even though he was secretly being showered with them,” said Manhattan prosecutor Damian Williams.
Prosecutors said Adams tried to hide some of the illicit gifts by paying a fraction of their cost. They allege that in 2017, when he was still Brooklyn Borough president, he received a discounted stay at the St. Regis Istanbul hotel, paying $700 for a two-night stay that should have cost $7,000.
Prosecutors also alleged that Adams funneled 2021 campaign contributions from Turkish nationals through U.S. citizens to disguise their origin. The move paved the way for Adams to collect an extra $10 million in public funding, the indictment said.
Federal agents were observed searching the mayor’s residence on Thursday morning, but this was “a spectacle,” according to a statement by his lawyer Alex Spiro.
“They send a dozen agents to pick up a phone when we would have happily turned it in,” Spiro said.
Adams announced on Thursday morning that he will not resign. “I look forward to defending myself and defending the people of this city,” he said at a press conference outside mayoral residence Gracie Mansion.
He also hinted at a day when “we will finally reveal why, for 10 months, I’ve gone through this.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), mayoral candidates Scott Stringer, and city comptroller, Brad Lander have all asked him to step down.
The charges against Adams were preceded by federal investigations and subsequent resignations of mayoral counsel Lisa Zornberg, New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks, and New York Police Department commissioner Edward Caban.
—Jack Phillips, Stacy Robinson
APPEALS COURT SKEPTICAL OF TRUMP CIVIL FRAUD SUIT
An appeals court in New York heard oral argument on Thursday over former President Donald Trump’s challenge to the civil fraud judgment against him earlier this year.
The five-judge panel was part of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court—the first rung in a multi-layered appeals system that could determine the ultimate outcome of the case. Trump currently faces a disgorgement of $489 million with accumulating interest.
Some of the judges seemed skeptical of Attorney General Leticia James’s prosecution and that she stayed within the bounds of her authority under the law in question.
Justice Peter Moulton asked: “How do we draw a line, or at least [put up] some guardrails to know when the AG is operating well within her broad, admittedly broad sphere of 63(12)?”
James had pursued legal action under New York Executive Law Section 63(12), which allows the attorney general to apply for court intervention when “any person shall engage in repeated fraudulent or illegal acts or otherwise demonstrate persistent fraud or illegality in the carrying on, conducting or transaction of business.”
Trump’s attorney, D. John Sauer, argued that James was relying on a loose conception of fraud and that Trump hadn’t victimized anyone with his business conduct.
Presiding Justice Dianne Renwick was skeptical that the statute required some kind of harm in order to prove fraudulent activity. She read the relevant portion of the statute and asked Vale: “Are there any cases where the language harm or threat to harm limits the scope of the attorney general?”
Vale maintained that the attorney general had a legitimate interest in bringing the lawsuit, saying “when risk is injected into the market, that does hurt the counterparties and it does hurt the market as a whole.”
She also defended the disgorgement amount, which Moulton described as “troubling,” arguing that “there was a lot of fraud ... and illegality.”
—Sam Dorman
BOOKMARKS
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris hosted meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington on Sept. 26 to discuss a victory plan for Ukraine in its war with Russia. The winning strategy will include another $8 billion of military funding for Ukraine.
Third-party candidates Cornel West and Claudia De la Cruz have been struck from the ballot in Georgia, following a unanimous ruling from that state’s Supreme Court on Sept. 25. The ruling is the final word in a suit launched by Democrats, who have fought to remove third-party candidates from ballots in several states this election.
The city of Madison, Wisconsin, accidentally mailed more than 2,000 duplicate absentee ballots, in what City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl called a “simple data processing error.” Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) is calling for an independent investigation, saying Wisconsin has a “history of controversial and legally dubious election practices.”
Roving mobs of bicyclists, 20 to 40 strong, are looting 7-11 stores across Los Angeles, police warn. The mobs, made up of “youthful males, possibly teens varying in ethnicity and physical descriptors,” swarm into the convenience stores and pillage merchandise before fleeing.
Former Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani was disbarred in Washington on Sept. 26 by a three-judge panel in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. The ruling follows Giuliani’s disbarment in New York, and a slew of legal troubles following his dispute of the 2020 presidential election.
—Stacy Robinson
