Federal prosecutors unsealed a stinging indictment against Mayor Adams Thursday, alleging he took bribes from Turkish nationals for nearly a decade.
The criminal charges — the first against a sitting mayor in the city’s modern history — were laid out in a 57-page document alleging Adams acquiesced to Turkish requests in return for years of free travel, accommodations, and illegal campaign donations.
Here’s how the feds laid out their case:
Early trips
Adams’ relationship with Turkish interests began early in his tenure as Brooklyn borough president, prosecutors allege. Within a year and a half of his Borough Hall inauguration, Adams took an August 2015 trip to the country, arranged by the Turkish Consulate and Bay Atlantic University — a for-profit university with campuses in Washington, D.C., and Istanbul.
Adams made a second trip that December, arranged by an unnamed Turkish government official and an unnamed Turkish “promoter,” an entrepreneur who organized events meant to connect Turkish businesses to influential people. Adams received free business class flights on Turkish Airlines for both trips, prosecutors said — and reported both on his financial disclosure forms.
Free flights…
That reporting soon stopped, feds said, and the alleged bribes got more luxurious.
In October 2016, Adams and his partner, Tracey Collins, accepted a free business class upgrade on a Turkish Airlines flight to India. Their original tickets were worth $2,300, the feds said, drastically less than the $15,000 value of the upgraded tickets.
Twice the following year— in July and August 2017 — Adams, an unnamed relative, and Winnie Greco — his Asian American affairs liaison who was raided by the feds earlier this year — allegedly accepted free business class tickets for travel to a slew of destinations: Nice, France; Istanbul, Turkey; Columbo, Sri Lanka; and Beijing, China.
The free travel was worth about $35,000, according to prosecutors, and went unreported.
In October 2017, Adams and Greco took the airline to Nepal through Istanbul and Beijing, a $16,000 trip the pair took for free.
Prosecutors said Adams often went out of his way to take advantage of the free flights. “You know first stop is always instanbul [sic],” he texted Collins regarding a circuitous 2017 flight back to New York from France.
Alex Spiro, an attorney for Adams, said Thursday there was nothing untoward about the seat upgrades.
“Those were upgrades on open seats,” Spiro said.
The mayor’s attorney said such upgrades are commonplace and often done for VIPs — and that prosecutors were twisting that narrative “to tarnish [the mayor] in your eyes.”
…and luxe accommodations
The lush benefits didn’t end with flights, prosecutors said. Adams, his relative and Greco were given deep discounts on a luxurious suite at Istanbul’s St. Regis hotel. The then-borough president paid less than $600 for two nights in the hotel’s tony Bentley Suite — a stay the feds said would typically cost $7,000.
Later, in 2019, while the mayor was allegedly soliciting illegal campaign donations in Turkey, he was comped a two-night stay in the St. Regis’ Cosmopolitan Suite, valued at $3,000.
The feds claimed Adams’ Turkish connections treated him to the high life — picking him up from the airport in a chauffeured 7-series BMW, delivering him to dinners and drinks with government officials, and giving him so many boat tours of the Bosphorus Strait that he ultimately declined, saying he’d “done the boat tour a few times.”
Campaign Contributions
The money didn’t stop at fancy flights and high-end automobile rides to luxe lodgings — prosecutors say the Turks were investing in power, funding the campaign of a man they thought might become the U.S. president. The claim is that Adams would use his frequent trips to Turkey as fundraising opportunities, meeting with wealthy business leaders and discussing large donations.
“Fund raising in Turkey is not legal, but I think I can raise money for your campaign off the record,” the entrepreneur who helped arrange one of Adams’ early trips said to an Adams staffer, beleived to be Rana Abbasova.
“How will [Adams] declare that money here?” Abbasova responded.
“We’ll make the donation through an American citizen in the U.S . . . . A Turk,” the promoter proposed.
In all, Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign netted some $10 million in matching funds, despite a reliance on illegal foreign contributions, prosecutors said.
Spiro disputed the notion that the mayor had sought foreign donations.
“There are emails with Mayor Adams telling them, telling this staffer, telling all of them, do not take foreign money, period,” the attorney said.
Spiro shared a screenshot of a purported text exchange between Adams and Abbasova in which he writes, “Rana please be aware we can’t take money from people who are not U.S. citizens.”
Quid pro quo…
Prosecutors say Adams did take the money — and bowed to a series of demands from Turkish officials in return for the alleged lavish treatment and investment in his political future.
In 2016, Adams was asked to cut ties with a Turkish community center in Brooklyn whose politics rubbed the Ankara regime the wrong way. Prosecutors said he acquiesced. He was similarly silent about the Armenian Genocide — which the Turkish Government denies happened — during 2022’s remembrance day
But the big “quid,” say prosecutors, came in September 2021, after Adams had won the Democratic mayoral primary and was therefore the presumptive mayor-elect.
That’s when Turkish Consul General Reyhan Özgür asked Adams to certify the safety of the nation’s newly-built high-rise consulate building in Midtown — over the objection of the FDNY.
Prosecutors Thursday said Özgür spelled it out: Ankara had supported Adams; it was “his turn” to support Turkey. That message was relayed by a Abbasova to Adams — who allegedly said, “I know.”
The mayor has previously said there was nothing improper about his reaching out to then-FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro in an effort to expedite an inspection at the site.
Spiro reiterated that, sharing screenshots of purported text messages between Adams and Nigro in which the mayor-to-be asks the fire commish to adjudicate an apparent difference of opinion between a Department of Buildings inspector and a fire-alarm contractor on the project.
But prosecutors said the exchange — and the broader pattern of alleged perks and gifts — constituted an effort to buy influence with the Adams.
“I want to be clear, these upgrades and freebies were not part of some frequent flyer or loyalty program available to the general public,” US Attorney Damian Williams told reporters Thursday, “This was a multi-year scheme to buy favor with a single New York City politician on the rise: Eric Adams.”
…and an alleged coverup
The mayor and his staff were aware they were breaking the law, prosecutors said, and worked to conceal their arrangement.
Prosecutors said Adams tried to create fake paper-trails to make it look like he paid for his free flights.
In a March 2019 text exchange between Adams and the staffer believed to be Abbasova, she wrote, “To be o[n the] safe side please delete all messages you send me.”
“Always do,” the mayor replied.
In a 2021 conversation with the Turkish Airlines manager, Abbasova rejected his proposed $50 charge for last-minute business-class tickets to Istanbul.
“His every step is being watched right now,” she said, suggesting the price instead be “$1,000 or so”
“Let it be somewhat real,” Abbasova continued. “We don’t want them to say he is flying for free. At the moment, the media’s attention is on Eric.”
Spiro, the mayor’s attorney, dismissed the evidence laid out in the indictment.
“There’s no corruption,” he said. “This is not a real case.”
“We’re going to see everybody in court,” he added, “hopefully [Friday], not Monday.”
With Chris Sommerfeldt and Anusha Bayya
