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

Without a lawyer or any of the deputy mayors who usually sat with him on a dais 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.

“Every day, New Yorkers are hit with bad news, every day,” Adams said. “And the message is that when you reach an obstacle, just throw up your hands and give up?” he said. “That’s not who I am. And if that’s who I am, then I should have never, have put myself in this position to be mayor. I can’t be any clearer: obstacles don’t stop me, they strengthen me. And that has been my life story.”

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. The on Oct. 7, a sixth top aid, deputy mayor of public saftey Philip Banks also stepped down, joining his brother education chancellor David Banks in heading for the exit.

Adams said he was proposing Muriel Good-Truffant to be the next corporation counsel for the city. Adams previous pick, Randy Mastro, a litigator from the administration 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. The post has been vacant since Sylvia Hinds-Radix left several months ago.

Adams also unveiled he was nominating Allison Stoddart to be City Hall’s chief counsel. She replaces Lisa Zornberg, a former federal prosecutor who resigned suddenly on Sept. 14 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 wrote.

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. Both have since resigned.

Pearson resigned anyway on September 30 as at least four federal investigations continue involving the Adams administration. Pearson has had at least four sexual harassment claims filed against him.

“Tim made the decision that he wanted to focus on another aspect of his life and deal with those items he had to deal with,” Adams said regarding Pearson’s departure from the post of Office of Municipal Service Assessment. “And he made the determination that it was time for him to go on with that. And I respect that. He served his city as a police officer and in private and public life. And he’s moving on to the next level.”

Phil Banks, who said on Oct. 7 he is resigning, is the brother of education chancellor David Banks who tendered 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. [David Banks and Wright were married on Martha’s Vineyard on September 28.] The raid on their Harlem townhouse happened on the same day that the homes of several other top aids were raided, including NYPD Commissioner Ed Caban, who also subsequently resigned, claiming he did not want to become a “distraction.” In the raids by the FBI and federal investigators, cell phones and other electronic equipment 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. “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 role in the steel mills and the life she lived. And so she has a 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, Spiro 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 and that they wanted the leakers to be prosecuted for leaking grand jury testimony. “The government has shown an appalling disregard for Mayor Adams’ rights and the grand jury secrecy provisions,” Spiro said.

The first of the federal investigations became known in November, 2023 when the home of Adams chief fundraiser Brianna Suggs was raided. Adams 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 defense fund.

One of the questions fired at him concerned the time when he was still Brooklyn 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 on the United Nations Plaza in mid-town Manhattan. The FDNY inspectors said the building had safety deficiencies and could not be occupied. Shortly after Adams called the fire commissioner to inquire about the inspections, the building was cleared to get 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 in Manhattan 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,” Adams said.

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.”

But federal prosecutors said on Oct. 2 that more charges may be pending against Adams and other could be indicted as the investigations continue. There are believed to be at least four different federal investigations afoot.

Not surprisingly, Adams attorney, Alex Spiro blasted the report that more indictments could be coming. “The prosecution is desperately now saying they ‘could’ bring a new case because they are suddenly facing dismissal of their actual, flawed case and sanctions for misconduct. This is the sort of nonsense that prosecutors say when they don’t have a real case. If they had a real case, they would have brought it.”