Michael Keehan
Staff Writer
Eric Adams, the sitting mayor of New York City, was indicted by a grand jury on five federal charges, the first for a sitting mayor of the nation’s largest city. These charges include bribery, wire fraud conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and two counts of solicitation of contributions by foreign nationals.
This comes after years of investigation by the FBI into Adams over his fundraising practices during his mayoral campaign. The New York Times reported on the investigation, which alleged that donations to Adams through the KSK Construction were funneled through a straw donor scheme by the Turkish government.
The FBI followed this up by investigating various allies and friends of Adams to unravel a web of corruption. This included the NYPD commissioner Edward Caban and, according to Politico, a priest who was already being investigated by the church for his role in a Sabrina Carpenter music video.
The New York Times reported on the indictment on Sept. 25 and two days later, Adams would plead not guilty to all five charges. He decried the indictments of being politically motivated, accusing the Biden administration of targeting him in the aftermath of NYC’s migrant crisis. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denied this, and according to Politico, Biden had only spoken to Adams once in the past few years.
The investigation and criminal charges have caused many of Adams’ allies, including Caban, to resign from their posts, and many New York politicians such as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have called on Adams to resign. Adams has refused and vowed to fight the charges, which will be fought in the court of Southern District Judge Dale Ho.