N.Y.C. Mayor Eric Adams Charged with Taking Foreign Bribes During His Rise to Power in Newly Unsealed Indictment

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is charged with five criminal counts relating to his alleged ties with foreign businessmen and a Turkish official who sought to influence his decision-making, according to a newly unsealed indictment.

Adams is charged with conspiring to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery and receiving campaign contributions by foreign nationals; as well as one count of bribery, one count of wire fraud, and two counts of soliciting a contribution by a foreign national.

“The conduct alleged in the indictment — the foreign money, the corporate money, the bribery, the years of concealment — is a grave breach of public trust,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams after the charges were revealed on Thursday, Sept. 26.

Alex Spiro, a celebrity lawyer whom Adams recently retained for his criminal case, is accusing federal investigators of putting on a show as the mayor maintains his innocence.

“We have known for some time that they would try to find a way to bring a case against Mayor Adams. Yesterday — more improper leaks. Today — they emailed us a summons (and created the spectacle of a bogus raid),” he tells PEOPLE in a statement, later adding: “We will see them in court.”

On Wednesday, Sept. 26, news broke that a federal corruption investigation into New York City administrators had resulted in criminal charges against the mayor, though the specific charges remained sealed until Thursday.

Adams is now the first sitting N.Y.C. mayor to face criminal charges, joining a growing list of political figures who have been indicted by the Department of Justice since last year, including then-Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, and former President Donald Trump.

Adams, a former NYPD officer, was elected mayor in 2021 after serving eight years as Brooklyn’s borough president and seven years as a state senator. Recently a series of officials in his administration have resigned or retired, some of whom had been roped into the federal probes.

The mayor is up for reelection in 2025, though a chorus of N.Y.C.-based leaders have called for him to immediately step down, including council members, state legislators, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“I do not see how Mayor Adams can continue governing New York City,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X soon after the indictment news dropped. “The flood of resignations and vacancies are threatening gov [sic] function. Nonstop investigations will make it impossible to recruit and retain a qualified administration. For the good of the city, he should resign.”

In a press conference on Thursday, Adams denied that he is considering a resignation, saying, “I was elected by 700,000 people.”

Federal agents raided the home of Adams’ former campaign fundraiser in November 2023, first revealing that a corruption investigation was underway.

A copy of that search warrant, obtained by The New York Times, showed that investigators were seeking more information about the possible involvement of a Brooklyn construction company with ties to Turkey and a Washington, D.C., university with ties to both Turkey and Adams.

The Times reported that investigators were looking to determine if Adams’ mayoral campaign “kicked back benefits” to the construction company’s employees and officials from Turkey, according to the warrant.

When the investigation ramped up in recent months, several top officials in Adams’ administration had their homes raided and phones seized. The new indictment accuses him of engaging in an alleged decade-long scheme to accept “valuable benefits” from foreign actors in exchange for giving them influence.

“As Adams’s prominence and power grew, his foreign-national benefactors sought to cash in on their corrupt relationships with him, particularly when, in 2021, it became clear that Adams would become New York City’s mayor,” the indictment reads. “Adams agreed, providing favorable treatment in exchange for the illicit benefits he received.”

It continues: “After his inauguration as mayor of New York City, Adams soon began preparing for his next election, including by planning to solicit more illegal contributions and granting requests from those who supported his 2021 mayoral campaign with such donations.”

The wealthy contributors allegedly circumvented election laws that put a cap on campaign contributions by trickling their money down through several small donors, with the indictment claiming he “increased his fundraising by accepting these concealed, illegal donations — at the cost of giving his secret patrons the undue influence over him that the law tries to prevent.”

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The Turkish official mentioned in the indictment allegedly gave Adams and his staff more than $120,000 worth of free and discounted luxury travel to Turkey, France, China, Sri Lanka, India and Hungary, which Adams is accused of going through great lengths to cover up — including by allegedly instructing others to “create fake paper trails” and deleting messages.

Later, when the Turkish official wanted to hurriedly open a new skyscraper consular building in New York City, Adams allegedly pressured the city’s fire department to skip a fire inspection so that it would not fail the test.