NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty Friday to federal bribery charges, firmly rejecting allegations that he accepted overseas travel, campaign cash and other perks from foreign interests seeking to harness his influence.
Adams, a former police captain, entered the plea in a packed courtroom that’s just a short walk from City Hall, which has been roiled in recent weeks by a cascade of investigations, searches and subpoenas. The first-term Democrat maintains he did nothing wrong and has vowed to stay in office, rebuffing growing calls for him to quit.
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“I am not guilty, your honor,” Adams said, looking solemnly at the judge.
His appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker came a day after prosecutors unsealed an indictment accusing him of taking $100,000 in flights and stays in opulent hotel suites from people tied to Turkey, and fueling his run for mayor with illegal donations that helped him qualify for more than $10 million in public campaign funds.
Adams was released on the condition that he not contact any witnesses or people described in the indictment. The mayor is allowed to speak with relatives and staff, but not about anything pertaining to the allegations.
Adams left the courtroom without commenting. He smiled at a court officer but ignored the rows of reporters he passed on his way out. Afterward, he stood silently outside the courthouse while his lawyer, Alex Spiro, railed against the charges to a crowd of cameras while onlookers shouted “Free Eric!” and “Lock him up!”
“This isn’t even a real case. This is the airline upgrade corruption case,” Spiro said. He told the judge would file a motion next week asking for the case to be dismissed.
Yet even as the mayor appeared in court, the investigation into his administration continued.
One of Adams' closest City Hall advisers, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, was met at the airport Friday by investigators from the U.S. attorney's office and Manhattan district attorney's office after she got off flight from Japan. The federal investigators served her with a subpoena. The local prosecutors took her phones and searched her house, according to her lawyer, Arthur Aidala. A TV news crew got footage of investigators carrying out boxes marked “documents” and “electronics.”
“She will cooperate fully with any and all investigations and Ms. Lewis is not the target of any case of which we are aware,” Aidala said.
Adams, 64, is due back in court Wednesday for a conference before U.S. District Judge Dale E. Ho, who will preside over the case going forward.
In his 18-minute appearance Friday, Adams sat stoically with his hands folded in his lap as the magistrate judge read the charges aloud, her sturdy delivery underscoring the gravity of the case. He was at the courthouse for just under four hours.
The criminal case and tumult in Adams' administration, including the sudden resignation of his police commissioner and retirement of his schools chancellor, have created a political crisis for the mayor.
Adams has so far weathered calls to resign, including from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, potential Democratic challengers in next June’s mayoral primary, and some Republicans. Top Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries have not called on Adams to quit, saying the legal process should be allowed to play out.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who has the power to remove Adams from office, appeared to issue a warning to a mayor she has often portrayed as a close ally, saying in a statement that she was reviewing her “options and obligations” and expects “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.”
Adams, who soared to office as a law-and-order champion of the middle class, is charged with five counts: wire fraud, bribery, conspiracy and two counts of receiving campaign contributions from a foreign national. If convicted of the most serious charge, wire fraud, he faces up to 20 years in prison, federal prosecutors said.
Among other things, Adams is accused of allowing a senior Turkish diplomat and others to shower him with luxury accommodations to places like France, China, Sri Lanka, India, Hungary, Ghana and Turkey, including valuable business-class upgrades, high-end meals and even a trip to a Turkish bath. Most of the trips took place while Adams was Brooklyn borough president, before he ran for mayor.
Adams is also accused of conspiring to take campaign contributions from foreign sources banned from giving to U.S. campaigns and disguising the payments by routing them through straw donors.
In return, Adams allegedly did favors for his patrons, including helping ensure that Turkey’s newly built diplomatic tower in Manhattan wouldn’t be subject to a fire inspection that it was certain to fail.
Spiro, whose roster of past and present clients includes Elon Musk, Alec Baldwin and Jay-Z, said it was neither unusual nor improper for an elected official to accept some travel perks. The mayor has denied ever knowingly accepting an illegal campaign contribution and said any help he gave people navigating city bureaucracy was just part of his job.
Adams' indictment is unlikely to be the last word on federal investigations involving city government.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams told reporters Thursday: “This investigation continues. We continue to dig, and we will hold more people accountable, and I encourage anyone with information to come forward and to do so before it is too late.”
Federal prosecutors are believed to be leading multiple, separate inquiries involving Adams and his senior aides and relatives of those aides. In early September, federal investigators seized devices from the police commissioner, schools chancellor, two deputy mayors and other trusted Adams confidants.
None of those other officials have been publicly accused of wrongdoing or charged with a crime.
The Lower Manhattan courthouse is less than two blocks from the one where former President Donald Trump was tried and convicted of falsifying business records. Adams' arraignment was in the same courthouse where a jury found Trump civilly liable for sexually assaulting the writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996 and in the very same courtroom where hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was arraigned last week on sex trafficking charges.
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Associated Press reporter Anthony Izaguirre in Albany contributed.