A grand jury in the Southern District of New York returned a five-count indictment against New York City Mayor Eric Adams on 22 April 2025, charging him with conspiracy, wire fraud, two counts of solicitation of campaign contributions from foreign nationals, and bribery in connection with what prosecutors describe as a years-long pattern of illicit benefits from Turkish government officials and businesspeople.
The indictment is the first federal indictment of a sitting New York City mayor since the prosecution of John Lindsay’s administration in the 1970s.
The Manhattan consulate
The central allegation concerns the construction of the new Turkish consulate building on First Avenue in Manhattan. Prosecutors say that in 2021, while Adams was Brooklyn Borough President and then mayor-elect, he pressured the New York City Fire Department to issue a temporary certificate of occupancy for the consulate ahead of an official visit by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, despite unresolved fire-safety concerns.
In return, the indictment alleges, Adams accepted free and heavily discounted travel to Turkey, Sri Lanka, India and other destinations, with upgrades and amenities valued in the “tens of thousands of dollars”, as well as illegal straw-donor contributions to his 2021 mayoral campaign.
Straw donors and matching funds
Prosecutors also detail a scheme in which Turkish-American business owners allegedly reimbursed employees and associates for nominal contributions to the Adams campaign, with the goal of triggering New York City’s public matching-funds programme, which provides up to eight dollars in city money for every dollar from a qualifying small donor.
Several lower-level co-conspirators, including an Adams aide and a Turkish Airlines official, were charged in superseding indictments and have entered plea negotiations.
Politics in City Hall
Mayor Adams, who has denied wrongdoing, has refused to resign and is expected to seek the Democratic nomination for re-election in 2025. Governor Kathy Hochul has so far declined to invoke her power under the New York City Charter to remove him.
The prosecution arrived against a backdrop of broader concern in US national-security circles about foreign influence on US mayors and state officials, which has so far attracted less prosecutorial attention than influence operations targeting federal officials.
