Embattled Mayor Facing Press Vows He’s Not Stepping Down After 5 Count Fed Corruption Indictment

Without a lawyer or any of the deputy mayors who usually sat with him on a dias at his weekly media avails, Mayor Eric Adams on Oct. 1. unveiled two new legal appointments and vowed once again to not step aside in face of the five count federal corruption indictment that he was hit with last week.<br />

A day after he lost at least his fifth top aid in the wake of the ongoing federal investigations, he also unveiled two key appointments.

He said he was proposing Muriel Good-Truffant to be the next corporation councel for the city. He previous pick, Randy Mastro, a litigator from the era of Rudy Giuliani who most recently was representing New Jersey in its anti-congestion pricing lawsuit versus New York State withdrew his name after encountering fierce blowback during a blistering City Council hearing.

He also unveiled he was nominating Allison Stoddart to be City Hal’s chief counsel. She replaces Lisa Zornberg, a former federal prosecutor who resigned suddenly on Sept. 15 with a three sentence resignation letter to Adams. “I am tendering my resignation, effective today, as I have concluded that I can no longer effectively serve in my position. I wish you nothing but the best,”

She reportedly clashed with Adams who resisted her recommendation that he fire Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks and senior public safety adviser Tim Pearson.

Pearson resigned anyway on September 30, becoming at least the fifth top aide to resign as federal investigations continue. Phil Banks is the brother of education chancellor David Banks who tenedered his resignation and said he intended to retire at year end about a week after the townhouse he shared with first deputy mayor Sheena Wright was raided. That happened on the same day that the homes of several other top aids were raided, including NYPD Commissioner Ed Caban, who also subsequently resigned. In the raids by the FBI and federal investigations, cells phones and other electronic equiment were seized.

Asked at the press conference if he expected others to leave and if he thought Governor Kathy Hochul would force him out, he downplayed the question. “There are always movement in an out of government,” he insisted. He also said he had a “great conversation” with Hochul “in the last few days.”

He also returned to the topic later in the press conference to discuss the governor, who actually has the power to remove a mayor from office. “With the governor, I think that the governor has worked with me for the last few years and she knows I am a grinder. She’s a grinder, you know, blue collar upbringing from Buffalo. She always talked about the fole in the steel mills and the life she lived. And so she has sense of fairness and that’s so important.

On the legal front, Adams hired high powered private attorney Alex Spiro, who represented Alec Baldwin among others. But Adams said he is also continuing to work with previous private attorneys at Wilmer Hale, Brendan & Boyd. On September 30 filed a motion to have the feds drop the bribery charge, insisting it did not meet the legal bar for such a charge. In addition to bribery, Adams was charged with four other counts, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and two counts of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national, which the indictment charged was the government and wealthy executives from Turkey.

His attorneys also claimed that federal investigators were leaking material to the press during the course of a ten month investigation that first became known in November, 2023 when the home of his chief fundraiser Brianna Suggs was raided. He said he is paying his legal team out of his own pocket. “I have legal bills and I am going to pay my bills.” But he ducked questions on whether he is doing fundraising for a legal fund.

One of the questions fired at him concerned the time when he was still borough president but had won the democratic primary for mayor in 2021 and was presumably a shoe in to be elected mayor. In September, 2021, two months before the election, he placed several calls to the fire commissioner to see if he could get the fire department to speed along its inspections of a skyscraper that the Turkish government was building but which the FDNY inspectors said had safety deficiencies. Shortly after Adams called the fire commissioner to inquire about the inspections, the building was given a temporary certificate of occupancy by the Building Department, indicating the Fire Department had signed off on the safety concerns. It is a central part of the bribery charge, because the federal indictment said it was payback after Adams enjoyed a decade of travel and luxury hotels from Turkish government leaders and business people. Prosecutors said he accepted over $120,000 worth of free trips and upgrades on Turkish Airline going back to 2014.

Adams insisted the inquiry regarding the Turkish House building permit was just helping a constituent cut through government bureaucracy, which he said every politician does.

“Why was that a constituent of yours when you were Brooklyn borough president?” he was asked at the press conference. “Brooklyn has one of the largest Turkish population, definitely the largest Turkish population in the city.”

And he insisted once again that he has no intention of stepping down in the face of the indictments. “I want to be clear, if I couldn’t do my job, I would never do anything that’s going to get in the way of this city. I love this city...I am never going to harm this city. I can do this job, and I will continue to do this job, and I have the right team to do the job.”