New York City Mayor Eric Adams was Thursday for impermissibly soliciting and accepting donations from foreign agents in exchange for political favors as well as illegally obtaining public funds through the guise of small donor campaign contributions. The 57-page indictment Adams of accepting benefits from Turkish foreign nationals that included plane tickets, hotels, luxury entertainment, and campaign donations. The US Attorney’s Office from the Southern District of New York handled the investigation in conjunction with the FBI and New York City’s own Department of Investigation.
Adams is also accused of siphoning off $10 million in public funds through campaign donations by using “straw donations”—a scheme where money donated by foreign nationals was funneled through city residents to circumvent campaign finance laws. The indictment claimed that this scheme took advantage of a city matching funds program, which matches “small dollar contributions from individual City residents with up to eight times their amount in public funds, to give New Yorkers a greater voice in elections.” Investigators claimed that Adams took action to hide the benefits from public scrutiny by failing to disclose them in annual financial disclosures.
He allegedly instructed subordinates to create fake paper trails to suggest that he had paid for the benefits himself. The indictment also includes accusations that Adams traveled to Turkey multiple times to solicit campaign donations and ha.