Federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Thursday unveiled a five-count indictment against Mayor Eric L. Adams of New York, charging him with bribery conspiracy, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations.
Mr. Adams, who is up for re-election in 2025, insisted he was innocent and says he intends to fight the case, which is led by U.S. Attorney Damian Williams of the Southern District of New York.
The New York Times is annotating the indictment.
New York Times Analysis
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This is a historic and remarkable case title, naming the first mayor in modern New York City history to be criminally charged while in office, only three years after Eric Adams was elected to lead City Hall.
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Often, a criminal indictment is written like a story. Here, federal prosecutors describe the main character, in this case Eric Adams, and start to set a scene before describing the specifics of a criminal conspiracy of which he was a member.
New York Times Analysis
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Federal prosecutors accuse Adams and his campaign of illegally taking New York City’s generous public matching program by using so-called straw donors to inflate the amount to which he was entitled. However, the number they use here — $10,000,000 — is the total amount of matching funds he received, rather than what he might have obtained illegally.
New York Times Analysis
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Mr. Adams’s love of travel is well-known, and he has often spoken of all the international destinations he has visited — going back to his time as a state senator. Reporters have often questioned how these trips were paid for, and now prosecutors are saying some of them, along with free meals and hotel rooms, were given to him as bribes.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
