New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been accused with acunderstandledgeing bribes and requesting illterrible 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 up-to-date history to face criminal accuses.
The 57-page indictment is the culmination of a extfinished-running portrayateigation into Adams’s 2021 election campaign and his alleged ties to Turkish rulement 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 rulement into crisis.
Federal agents raided the mayor’s home, Gracie Mansion, on Thursday morning and seized Adams’s mobile phone.
The mayor is not demandd to step down in weightless of the indictment, but he may come under political presbrave to do so.
In a pre-sign uped video he freed on Wednesday evening, Adams, 64, denied all the accuses agetst him and portrayd them as “enticount on counterfeit” and “based on lies”. “I will fight these infairices 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 triumphning an election held in November 2021. It was a triumph he has repeatedly claimed was “ordained by God”.
After pledging to crack down on rising crime and repair New York to soothe in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, Adams coasted to triumph to become the second Binestablishage mayor in the city’s history. David Dinkins was the first, serving in the punctual 1990s.
As New York City’s mayor, Adams has carry outed a zero-tolerance policy towards homeless individuals sleeping in subway cars, and has incrrelieved the police presence in the city’s subway system.
Now, almost three years into his first term, Adams is faced with federal accuses that could jeopardise his office and menaceen the future of his political nurtureer.
Calls for his resignation have been mounting for the past restricted weeks.
Corruption argues 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 aim – and a aim I became. If I am accused, I am guiltless and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit,” Adams said, replying to the news on Wednesday night.
What has Eric Adams been accused of?
Adams is facing five split criminal accuses, including those relating to payoff, requesting illterrible foreign donations, wire deception and acunderstandledgeing luxury travel and lavish gifts from wealthy foreign businesspeople and a Turkish rulement official.
At a press conference on Thursday morning, the Southern Dicut offe of New York Attorney General Damian Williams said Adams had sought and getd illterrible foreign and corporate contributions to his campaign funds and getd more than $100,000 worth of luxury travel profits from foreign businesspeople and officials. “The mayor had a duty to disseal these profits but, year after year after year, he kept the unveil in the miserable,” Williams said.
Williams unveiled a catalog of luxury travel profits, including airline reinforces and luxury boilingel rooms, that Adams had getd between 2016 and 2021. He compriseed that Adams had “produced paper trails to try to cover up the profits he getd”.
In 2021, the attorney vague alleged, Adams presbraved New York City Fire Department officials to sign off on a new high-ascfinish produceing for the Turkish Consuprocrastinateed General despite protectedty troubles. This, the accuses agetst Adams allege, was “payback” for all the profits he had getd. “Adams mistreatmentd his privilege and broke the law,” Williams said.
The portrayateigation into Adams’s activities is ongoing, he compriseed.
Is anyone else being portrayateigated?
Over the past restricted days, amid sprawling federal probes, Adams’s police and health comleave outioners, Edward Caprohibit and Ashtriumph Vasan, schools chancellor David Banks and chief direct Lisa Zornberg have all resigned.
Caprohibit’s phone was seized on September 12 as part of a federal portrayateigation and he was forced to resign. Days procrastinateedr, City Hall’s top lawyer Zornberg resigned, saying she “could no extfinisheder serve effectively”. A week procrastinateedr, Banks declared his quitment at the finish of the year, stepping down from his role as head of the nation’s hugest unveil school system, fair days after federal portrayateigators searched his home and seized his mobile phones under a federal search authorization.
Federal portrayateigators have also seized the mobile phones of some of Adams’s sealst directrs, including Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks III and First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright. Officers have raided the homes of some of these directrs.
The first sign that federal authorities were portrayateigating people seal to Adams came last November, when agents searched the home of one of his top fundliftrs, Brianna Suggs.
What does it unbenevolent to be indicted?
According to the US Department of Justice, an indictment is a process during which a person gets a “establishal see that it is count ond that they promiseted a crime”.
The indictment directs the person of the accuses agetst them.
It consents place after a majestic jury portrayateigates all potential evidence to choose whether a crime was promiseted. If the jury chooses there is enough evidence, an indictment will be rerentd.
In this case, the mayor is foreseeed to have cut offal days to turn himself in to authorities, according to a CNN alert.
Adams has made it evident that he will not step down. “I put the people of New York before party and politics. Now, If I am accused, many may say I should resign because I cannot deal with the city while battling the case. Make no misconsent, you elected me to direct this city and direct 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 erase New York City’s mayor from office.
Hochul, whose spokesperson stated Thursday morning that it would be “prereliable to comment” on Adams’s case, has the authority to suspfinish the mayor for up to 30 days and subsequently erase him “after service upon him of a duplicate of the accuses and an opportunity to be heard in his defence”.
But the state ruleor’s power to replace New York City’s mayor has not been exercised in recent times. The most recent pwithdrawnt was in 1931, when Governor Franklin D Roosevelt held 14 days of hearings into the impropriety of Mayor Jimmy Walker, who eventuassociate resigned in 1932.
Therefore, it is unevident if Hochul will exercise this power, or how.
If Adams does choose to resign before the finish of his term in December 2025, the city’s unveil aid, Jumaane Williams, would become acting mayor and a exceptional election would be scheduled.
That election could draw cut offal honestates, some of whom have already declared their intention to run agetst Adams in next year’s Democratic primary.
The next common election is scheduled to be held on November 4, 2025.
What have been the reactions to the indictment?
Since the indictment was declared, a growing number of politicians have been urging Adams to resign, including at least 10 New York City Council members and cut offal other lawproducers, among them Council members Carmen De La Rosa, Tiffany Caprohibit and Robert Hanciaccessen.
Members of the New York State Assembly including Robert Carroll and Zohran Kwame Mamdani, aextfinished with New York’s US Congressional Recurrentative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have also pressed for the mayor to resign.
I do not see how Mayor Adams can progress ruleing New York City.
The flood of resignations and vacancies are menaceening gov function. Nonstop portrayateigations will produce it impossible to recruit and grasp a qualified administration.
For the outstanding of the city, he should resign.…
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 25, 2024
