NYC Mayor Adams arrives at court for arraignment on sweeping federal bribery, corruption indictment

NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams showed up at court Friday morning to stand before a federal judge and be arraigned on bribery and wire fraud charges for secretly soliciting campaign contributions from overseas donors following a wide-ranging federal probe into corruption at City Hall.

Adams, surrounded by his security detail, showed up at federal court with his attorney just before 9 a.m. The former cop-turned-politician is scheduled to stand before a federal magistrate judge at noon.

Adams has claimed he is innocent of all charges. His attorney, Alex Spiro, requested the arraignment happen next week, to coincide with a hearing on the indictment, but his plea was denied.

The mayor said he would not resign and had several private meetings scheduled for Friday despite the looming arraignment.

One public event was scheduled, but it was open to “invited press only.”

Adams is facing the possibility of up to 45 years in prison if convicted of bribery, campaign finance, wire fraud, and conspiracy offenses, federal officials said.

The charges stem from an ongoing investigation by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office that has scrutinized allegations Turkey’s government funneled illegal donations into Adams’ 2021 campaign coffers. The indictment comes after revelations earlier this month that authorities are also looking into communications between Adams and the governments of five other foreign countries.

Adams is the first New York City mayor in the modern era to face criminal charges while in office. His administration has been reeling from additional federal corruption investigations and a series of high-profile resignations in recent weeks by top advisers to the mayor.

In the five-count indictment, federal investigators described a scheme that spanned “nearly a decade,” starting when Adams became Brooklyn borough president in 2014. The charges he faces are conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and receiving campaign contributions by foreign nationals; wire fraud; two counts of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national, and bribery.

Adams allegedly accepted “improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him,” the 57-page indictment charges.

Federal prosecutors say Adams solicited and accepted tens of thousands of dollars in illegal straw donations from Turkish nationals and, once he became mayor, his “foreign-national benefactors sought to cash in on their corrupt relationships with him” by securing favors from him.

Since becoming mayor, Adams has kept this favor-swapping relationship going and has continued soliciting illegal straw donations from Turkish nationals for his reelection campaign, according to the indictment.

It’s illegal to accept campaign donations from non-U.S. citizens. To get around this, Turkish officials allegedly sent the donations through third parties, known as straw donors, who were citizens.

Adams allegedly accepted the donations, knowing their origins, and maximized his gains through New York City’s matching funds program — netting his 2021 campaign over $10 million in public money that the feds say he should’ve never received due to the illegal nature of the Turkish contributions.

Adams repaid the favors by, among other actions, pressuring the FDNY into fast-tracking the opening of a new 36-floor Turkish Consulate in Manhattan despite serious fire safety concerns, the indictment charges.

Since the indictment was unsealed Thursday, several elected officials and community leaders have demanded that Adams resign from office, but the mayor isn’t budging.

Gov. Hochul, who has the power to remove Adams from office, called the indictment “the latest in a disturbing pattern of events” but did not call for him to step down.

“My focus is on protecting the people of New York and ensuring stability in the city,” she said in a statement late Thursday. “While I review my options and obligations as the governor of New York, I expect the mayor to take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well-served by their leaders.”