By Daniel Afanasyev
New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty to federal charges of bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy, and solicitation of illegal foreign campaign donations at his arraignment on Friday, Sept. 27.
Shortly after news of the indictment broke via the New York Times on Wednesday, Sept. 25, Adams asserted his innocence and vowed to fight the charges.
“I will fight these injustices with every ounce of my strength and spirit. If I’m charged, I know I am innocent. I will request an immediate trial so that New Yorkers can hear the truth,” Adams said in a pre-recorded video statement Wednesday night.
In the indictment brought forth by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damien Williams, the charges stem back 10 years to when Adams was Brooklyn Borough President, whereby he illegally accepted gifts and solicited campaign contributions from foreign nationals in exchange for using his political influence as mayor.
“Public office is a privilege, we allege Mayor Adams abused that privilege and broke the law. Laws that are designed to ensure that officials like him serve the people, not the highest bidder,” Williams said at a press conference Thursday.
A notable instance of Adams’s alleged misconduct was the pressuring of FDNY officials into opening a Turkish consular building without a fire inspection in time for the arrival of Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan, according to the indictment. The indictment also lays out Adams’s financial connections to Turkish government officials which he has used for his own personal gain.
Adams, a John Jay College graduate and alumni of the CUNY system, spent his time as mayor collaborating on a number of projects and initiatives with CUNY, often quipping that CUNY helped him to get to his position as mayor.
“I didn’t go to Harvard and Yale. I went to CUNY and jail. But I worked my way through. I am you,” Adams said on the campaign trail in 2021, according to a Governor’s Race 2022 post on X.
With Adams becoming the first sitting mayor to be indicted, and with the criminal case against him expected to last several months, it remains to be seen how the mayor will continue to perform the duties of his office under the increasingly tense relations between himself, other public officials, and the general public.