Indicted NY Mayor Eric Adams took bribes from Turkey

Federal authorities are investigating New York Mayor Eric Adams on corruption charges detailed in an unsealed indictment Thursday. The case centers on luxury travel perks the Turkish government and its national airline arranged, including extravagant international flights over five years before Adams became mayor. Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said Adams took over $100,000 in graft and used his powers to help Turkey. The mayor insisted he was innocent.

US federal prosecutors have accused members of the Turkish government of pulling off a years-long influence campaign to cultivate and secure favors from Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City.

In an indictment unsealed on Thursday morning, the US attorney of New York’s southern district alleged that government officials and business leaders with ties to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, showered Adams with thousands in illegal foreign campaign donations and free or heavily discounted luxury hotel stays and flights around the world.

In exchange, the indictment claims, Adams executed various favors for the Turkish government, including pressuring a local fire official to bypass safety regulations and greenlight the opening of a consular building so it could be ready before a visit by Erdoğan.

After that alleged intervention, a Turkish government official messaged the soon-to-be mayor calling him “a true friend of Turkey”, according to an exchange cited in the legal filing. Adams allegedly responded by calling the Turkish official “my brother”,

Adams, a 64-year-old former police officer and state lawmaker, now faces charges of wire fraud, bribery, and soliciting campaign donations from foreign nationals.

“The conduct alleged in the indictment, the foreign money, the corporate money, the bribery, the years of concealment, is a grave breach of the public’s trust,” Damian Williams, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, said in a press conference on Thursday.

Despite calls from a growing chorus of elected officials, Adams has vowed not to resign. The Democrat, who ran on a law-and-order message, is the first sitting mayor of New York to be indicted on federal corruption charges.

“It’s an unfortunate day. And it’s a painful day. But inside all of that is a day when we will finally reveal why, for 10 months, I’ve gone through this. And I look forward to defending myself,” he said on Thursday.

Turkey’s ministry of foreign affairs did not respond to requests for comment.