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      F.B.I. Seizes Eric Adams’s Phones as Campaign Investigation Intensifies

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      Days after a raid at Mr. Adams’s chief fund-raiser’s home, federal agents took the mayor’s phones and iPad, two people with knowledge of the matter said.F.B.I. agents seized Mayor Eric Adams’s electronic devices early this week in what appeared to be a dramatic escalation of a criminal inquiry into whether his 2021 campaign conspired with the Turkish government and others to funnel money into its coffers.The agents approached the mayor after an event in Manhattan on Monday evening and asked his security detail to step away, a person with knowledge of the matter said. They climbed into his S.U.V. with him and, pursuant to a court-authorized warrant, took his devices, the person said.The devices — at least two cellphones and an iPad — were returned to the mayor within a matter of days, according to that person and another person familiar with the situation. Law enforcement investigators with a search warrant can make copies of the data on devices after they seize them.A lawyer for Mr. Adams and his campaign said in a statement that the mayor was cooperating with federal authorities, and had already “proactively reported” at least one instance of improper behavior.“After learning of the federal investigation, it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly,” said the lawyer, Boyd Johnson. “In the spirit of transparency and cooperation, this behavior was immediately and proactively reported to investigators.”Mr. Johnson said that Mr. Adams has not been accused of wrongdoing and had “immediately complied with the F.B.I.’s request and provided them with electronic devices.” Mr. Adams had attended an anniversary celebration for an education initiative at New York University.The statement did not identify the individual, detail the conduct reported to authorities or make clear whether the reported misconduct was related to the seizure of the mayor’s devices. It was also not immediately clear whether the agents referred to the fund-raising investigation when they took the mayor’s devices.Mr. Adams, in his own statement, said that “as a former member of law enforcement, I expect all members of my staff to follow the law and fully cooperate with any sort of investigation — and I will continue to do exactly that.” He added that he had “nothing to hide.”The surprise seizure of Mr. Adams’s devices was an extraordinary development and appeared to be the first direct instance of the campaign contribution investigation touching the mayor. Mr. Adams, a retired police captain, said on Wednesday that he is so strident in urging his staff to “follow the law” that he can be almost “annoying.” He laughed at the notion that he had any potential criminal exposure.Spokesmen for the F.B.I. and the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, whose prosecutors are also investigating the matter, declined to comment.The federal investigation into Mr. Adams’s campaign burst into public view on Nov. 2, when F.B.I. agents searched the home of the mayor’s chief fund-raiser and seized two laptop computers, three iPhones and a manila folder labeled “Eric Adams.”The fund-raiser, a 25-year-old former intern named Brianna Suggs, has not spoken publicly since the raid.Mr. Adams responded to news of the raid by abruptly returning from Washington, D.C., where he had only just arrived for a day of meetings with White House and congressional leaders regarding the migrant influx, an issue he has said threatens to “destroy New York City.”On Wednesday, he said his abrupt return was driven by his desire to be present for his team, and out of concern for Ms. Suggs, who he said had gone through a “traumatic experience.”“Although I am mayor, I have not stopped being a man and a human,” he said.But he also said he did not speak with Ms. Suggs on the day of the raid, to avoid any appearance of interfering in an ongoing investigation.The seizure of Mr. Adams’s devices took place days after the F.B.I. raided the Brooklyn home of his chief fund-raiser, Brianna Suggs.Stephanie Keith for The New York TimesThe warrant obtained by the F.B.I. to search Ms. Suggs’s home sought evidence of a conspiracy to violate campaign finance law between members of Mr. Adams’s campaign, the Turkish government or Turkish nationals, and a Brooklyn-based construction company, KSK Construction, whose owners are originally from Turkey. The warrant also sought records about donations from Bay Atlantic University, a Washington, D.C., college whose founder is Turkish and is affiliated with a school Mr. Adams visited when he went to Turkey as Brooklyn borough president in 2015.The warrant, reviewed by The New York Times, indicated authorities were looking at whether the Turkish government or Turkish nationals funneled donations to Mr. Adams using a so-called straw donor scheme, in which the contributors listed were not the actual source of the money. The warrant also inquired about Mr. Adams’s campaign’s use of New York City’s generous public matching program, in which New York City offers an eight-to-one match of the first $250 of a resident’s donation.The federal authorities also sought evidence of whether any Adams campaign member provided any benefit to Turkey or the construction company in exchange for campaign donations.The Turkish Consulate in Manhattan on Thursday.Sara Hylton for The New York TimesThis is not the first time Mr. Adams or people in his orbit have attracted law enforcement scrutiny. In September, Eric Ulrich, Mr. Adams’s former buildings commissioner and senior adviser, was indicted by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, on 16 felony charges, including counts of bribetaking and conspiracy.In July, Mr. Bragg indicted six people, including a retired police inspector who once worked and socialized with Mr. Adams, on charges of conspiring to funnel illegal donations to the mayor’s 2021 campaign.Separately, the city’s Department of Investigation was investigating the role of Timothy Pearson, one of the mayor’s closest advisers, in a violent altercation at a migrant center in Manhattan.Mr. Adams has also had skirmishes with the law before becoming mayor. Soon after he was elected Brooklyn borough president, he organized an event to raise money for a new nonprofit, One Brooklyn, which had not yet registered with the state. The invitation list was based on donor rolls for nonprofits run by his predecessor, records show.A city Department of Investigation inquiry concluded Mr. Adams and his nonprofit appeared to have improperly solicited funding from groups that either had or would soon have matters pending before his office. Mr. Adams’s office emphasized to investigators that the slip-ups had occurred early in his administration and promised to comply with the law going forward.Earlier, while Mr. Adams was a New York state senator, the state inspector general found that he and other Senate Democrats had fraternized with lobbyists and accepted significant campaign contributions from people affiliated with contenders for a video lottery contract at Aqueduct Racetrack.In response to a Times examination of his fund-raising record in 2021, Mr. Adams attributed the scrutiny in part to his race.“Black candidates for office are often held to a higher, unfair standard — especially those from lower-income backgrounds such as myself,” he said in a statement then. “No campaign of mine has ever been charged with a serious fund-raising violation, and no contribution has ever affected my decision-making as a public official.” He added: “I did not go from being a person that enforced the law to become one that breaks the law.”Mr. Adams is not the first city mayor whose fund-raising has attracted federal scrutiny. In 2017, federal prosecutors examined episodes in which Bill de Blasio, who was then the mayor, or his surrogates sought donations from people seeking favors from the city, and then made inquiries to city agencies on their behalf.In deciding not to bring charges, the acting United States attorney, Joon H. Kim, cited “the particular difficulty in proving criminal intent in corruption schemes where there is no evidence of personal profit.” Mr. de Blasio received a warning letter about those activities from the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board. More

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      Pennsylvania Election Results 2023

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      With Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, limited to two terms, Cherelle Parker, a fellow Democrat who is a former state legislator and City Council member, is favored to win in a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 7 to 1. If elected, she would become the city’s 100th mayor and the first woman to hold […] More

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      Joe Hogsett Wins a Third Term as Indianapolis Mayor

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      Joe Hogsett, a Democrat, won a third term as mayor of Indianapolis, defeating a Republican businessman who spent more than $13 million of his own money on the race. Mr. Hogsett announced his win to supporters on Tuesday evening after his opponent, Jefferson Shreve, delivered a concession speech as votes were still being counted. Mr. Hogsett, a 67-year-old former federal prosecutor, contended on the campaign trail that he was better equipped to increase public safety, create jobs and improve the city’s infrastructure. Mr. Shreve, criticized Mr. Hogsett’s record on economic development and policing, noting that the police department has struggled with staffing shortages.The race to run Indianapolis, the capital and most populous city of Indiana, was more expensive than any previous mayoral campaign in the city, according to the Indianapolis Business Journal.Mr. Shreve, a former Indianapolis City-County Council member whose company built storage facilities across the Midwest, amassed more than $14 million, nearly all self funded. Mr. Hogsett raised just over $6 million.Indianapolis, a left-leaning metropolis of about 880,000 residents in a state that Republicans have come to dominate, has a history of electing both Democratic and Republican mayors. Though Democrats hold a large majority on the City-County Council, Mr. Hogsett’s predecessor, Greg Ballard, is a Republican.Mr. Hogsett and Mr. Shreve agreed on several issues. Both said that the city urgently needed to hire more police officers and vowed to make major investments to improve roads and revitalize the downtown district. They also said that they would urge state lawmakers to pass stricter gun laws.On the campaign trail, Mr. Hogsett asserted that the city was on solid footing after a challenging period that included the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, civil unrest after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and a surge of violence in 2021. That year, Indianapolis had a record number of homicides, including a shooting that killed nine people at a FedEx warehouse. Mr. Hogsett campaigned on his efforts to pass balanced city budgets for seven consecutive years, including a budget for 2024, totaling $1.5 billion, that the City-County Council approved unanimously last month.During the final weeks of the race, the city’s overcrowded animal shelter emerged as a contentious issue. Indianapolis has been working on a plan to move the shelter, Indianapolis Animal Care Services, to a new $30 million facility. Mr. Shreve, who has said he is passionate about animal welfare, vowed to donate his salary as mayor to Indianapolis Animal Care Services and to move expeditiously to build a new shelter that has adequate space and resources. More

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      Cody Smith Wins Uvalde Mayor Race

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      Kimberly Mata-Rubio, whose daughter was killed last year in a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, lost a special election to become mayor of a city that has struggled with divisions in the aftermath of the tragedy, The Associated Press reported.Cody Smith, a former mayor of Uvalde, will return to the office after running a campaign that called for honoring the lives of the 19 students and two teachers who died in the massacre, while focusing on moving the city forward.Mr. Smith, a senior vice president at First State Bank of Uvalde, was first elected to the City Council in 1994, and then as mayor in 2008 and in 2010. In his campaign, he also called for better communications among police agencies and mobilizing volunteers from the community to help those in need.During her campaign, many voters responded to Ms. Mata-Rubio’s many tributes to the daughter she lost, Lexi Rubio, whose image and favorite color were enshrined on some of her mother’s campaign materials. Ms. Mata-Rubio demanded more accountability for the slow police response to the shooting and advocated stronger gun laws, in addition to calling for more attention to fixing roads and adding stop signs.In third place was an art teacher, Veronica Martinez, who did little campaigning.Ms. Mata-Rubio and Ms. Martinez had been vying to become the first woman and the third Latino to lead the city of 15,000, where Hispanic residents are a majority.The special election was called after the current mayor, Don McLaughlin, announced that he was leaving City Hall to run for a Texas House seat. Mr. Smith’s term will last one year; another election for a full four-year term will happen next year.During the midterm elections, voters in Uvalde County, which also includes six small towns, similarly chose not to support politicians who called for police accountability and more restrictions on guns, delivering a political blow to the victims’ families who had campaigned on their behalf.Mr. Smith will take office on Nov. 14. More

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      Cherelle Parker Elected Mayor of Philadelphia

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      Cherelle Parker, a longtime state and local elected official who promised Philadelphia residents that she would aggressively tackle the city’s crime woes, was elected mayor Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, making her the first woman voted into the city’s highest office. Viewed as more moderate than the other candidates in the Democratic primary in May, Ms. Parker, 51, pledged to hire hundreds more police officers and bring back what she called “constitutional” stop-and-frisk tactics. With registered Democrats vastly outnumbering Republicans in the city — the nation’s sixth most populous, with 1.6 million residents — Ms. Parker’s primary win gave her a significant advantage over the Republican nominee, David Oh, a former colleague of hers on the City Council.No Republican has been elected mayor in Philadelphia since 1947, and recent nominees have typically received less than 20 percent of the vote. Ms. Parker, a lifelong Philadelphian, will be the city’s 100th mayor. She is a former English teacher, state legislator and member of the City Council. In talking about how to address the city’s high levels of illegal drug use and violent crime, she has been open to the idea of asking the National Guard to help tackle the open-air drug market in the Kensington neighborhood. More than 500 people were killed in each of the past two years in Philadelphia, the highest number on record, though homicides, shootings and violent crimes have fallen this year.Still, two-thirds of residents say the city is going in the wrong direction. Much of the violent crime has been concentrated in Black neighborhoods, and Ms. Parker said that as a Black woman and the mother of a Black son, she could identity with the struggles that many Philadelphians face.Ms. Parker will succeed Mayor Jim Kenney, who was limited to two terms in office. He has become increasingly unpopular, and has been criticized for being less engaged and less visible than he was when he first took office. More

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      ‘I’m Not Superwoman’: Philadelphia’s Likely Mayor Urges Teamwork

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      Cherelle Parker, a former City Council member, is poised to become the first woman to lead of America’s sixth-biggest city. Her to-do list is daunting.As one urban gardener after another beseeched Cherelle Parker to prevent the green spaces that they had spent years nurturing from being gobbled up by developers, she furiously took notes in her trademark spiral notebook and barely said a word.Eventually, Ms. Parker, the Democratic nominee for mayor, did address the neighborhood groups that had gathered on a chilly afternoon at Las Parcelas garden in north central Philadelphia. Yes, she would convene as many stakeholders as possible to come up with a solution. But a savior she was not.“I’m not Superwoman — I can’t fix everything up by myself,” she said as nearby construction clanged in the background. “I want to manage expectations.”Ms. Parker was talking about Philadelphia’s 450 community gardens, but she might as well have been referring to her 142-square-mile hometown.On Tuesday, Ms. Parker, a 51-year-old former state representative and City Council member, is favored to be elected mayor of Philadelphia and to be the first woman to lead the city and its 1.6 million residents.Should she win, she would have four years — or more likely eight, given that each of the last five mayors, all Democrats, won two terms — to grapple with the challenges bedeviling the nation’s poorest big city, headlined by gun violence, opioid overdoses and crumbling and chronically underfunded public schools.As a Black woman who was the daughter of a teenage mother and is now the mother of a Black son, Ms. Parker has said that she can relate to the everyday struggles faced by many of her neighbors.She has pledged to hire hundreds more police officers and bring back what she called “constitutional” stop-and-frisk, and she has been open in asking for help from the National Guard to tackle the open-air drug market that has made shootings common in the Kensington neighborhood.But with two-thirds of Philadelphians saying that the city is on the wrong track, what many residents say they want from their next leader, as much as any policy blueprint to navigate the city’s ills, is optimism and energy.Symbolism, after all, has always suffused a city whose history as a cornerstone of American democracy is so central to its identity. And Ms. Parker, as Philadelphia’s 100th mayor, would be the face of the city in 2026, when the country celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.“She’s very charming, she’s very charismatic — a calming presence,” said Cait Allen, president of the Queen Village Neighbors Association, which represents a historic and affluent area not far from Independence Hall. Citing Ms. Parker’s winning pitch in the intensely fought Democratic primary to make Philadelphia the “safest, cleanest, greenest city” in the country, Ms. Allen, 37, said, “She was the candidate who seemed to prioritize reality over philosophy.”Jim Kenney, current mayor of Philadelphia, is leaving office after two terms.Hannah Yoon for The New York TimesMs. Parker would succeed Mayor Jim Kenney, who is leaving office after two terms. Early in his tenure, Mr. Kenney shepherded in a soda tax to help fund pre-K education. More recently, the city’s finances have stabilized, and its bond rating has been upgraded.But against the wearying backdrop of the pandemic, Mr. Kenney’s second term has been overshadowed by the civil unrest following the killing of George Floyd and by the proliferation of gun violence, such as a mass shooting in July that was exacerbated by a botched police response.In an interview, Mr. Kenney, 65, said that “there’s a cultural shift that needs to be made.”He added, “Not that I’m not progressive or that I’m not understanding of people of color’s struggles, but I’m still a white man.”Ms. Parker is a former English teacher from northwest Philadelphia who has a strong working relationship with Gov. Josh Shapiro, a fellow Democrat. She will no doubt be integral to her party’s efforts to bolster turnout for President Biden, Senator Bob Casey and other Democrats in 2024, when Pennsylvania could affect the balance of power in the White House and Congress.Asked in an interview which mayors she hoped to emulate, she mentioned three: Maynard Jackson of Atlanta, for his stressing of economic opportunities; Sharon Weston Broome of Baton Rouge, who told Ms. Parker not to abandon “chemistry for credentials”; and Eric Adams of New York, for prioritizing “emotional intelligence” among members of his staff.“I do not like to see folks engaging in what I call ‘I know what’s best for you people’ policymaking,” she said. “Change is not supposed to happen to a community. Change happens in partnership with a community.”Her Republican opponent, David Oh, a former colleague on the City Council, would also make history if he pulled off an upset, becoming the city’s first Asian American mayor.David Oh, center, who has sought to woo immigrant voters, was at a City Hall ceremony celebrating the 100th anniversary of Turkey.Hannah Yoon for The New York TimesA lifelong Philadelphian like Ms. Parker, Mr. Oh, 63, a former prosecutor, has mounted a spirited and unorthodox campaign, aimed at wooing immigrants, to overcome the daunting math in which registered Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans.In an interview outside City Hall, after a flag-raising ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of Turkey as a republic, Mr. Oh noted his embracing of some positions to the left of Ms. Parker, such as limiting the use of stop-and-frisk. And unlike Ms. Parker, who counts the powerful building trade unions as a strong supporter, Mr. Oh opposes a proposed new basketball arena for the 76ers in downtown Philadelphia that local activists say would devastate Chinatown.He was disappointed, though, that Ms. Parker had only agreed to one debate.“It’s not about winning the election,” he said. “It’s about communicating to the voters. We must engage them in order to lift their spirits and put them behind a vision and a solution.”At a stylish coffee shop in a gentrifying part of West Kensington, Al Boyer, 24, and Alex Pepper, 38, both baristas, cited the opioid crisis and gun violence as top priorities for the next mayor.One man with a needle hanging out of his neck had recently died from an overdose across the street from the coffee shop. Just a few blocks away, groups of homeless people lay sleeping under blankets on the sidewalk along Kensington Avenue.Mr. Pepper said he supports establishing drug consumption sites supervised by medical and social workers — something Ms. Parker opposes. Still, Mr. Pepper said he would vote for her.“The lesser of two evils,” he said.Joel Wolfram More

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      Ballot-Stuffers Caught on Camera Have Upended a Race for Mayor

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      In Bridgeport, Conn., a judge found evidence of mishandled ballots in the Democratic primary for mayor and ordered a revote. But first, the city will hold a general election. After that? Stay tuned.Residents of Bridgeport, Conn., are preparing to cast their ballots in what may be the most confusing election in the country.A judge this week tossed out the results of the Democratic mayoral primary, citing surveillance video that appears to show significant voting irregularities. He ordered election officials to hold a new primary but had no authority to postpone the general election in the meantime. And so, on Tuesday, the general election will go on as planned.What happens after that is uncertain.“Obviously, we’re in very uncharted legal waters here,” said State Rep. Steven Stafstrom, a Democrat from Bridgeport and a co-chair of the legislature’s judiciary committee.The city finds itself in this mess after videos surfaced that showed suspicious activity at absentee ballot drop boxes. In clip after clip, two women are seen stuffing wads of paper into the boxes.“The videos are shocking to the court and should be shocking to all the parties,” Judge William Clark of the Superior Court in Bridgeport wrote in his ruling. He added, “The volume of ballots so mishandled is such that it calls the result of the primary election into serious doubt and leaves the court unable to determine the legitimate result.”Although voting fraud is rare across the country, Bridgeport, a city of about 150,000 people in the southwest part of the state, has been dogged by election improprieties in recent years.In June, the State Election Enforcement Commission, which is investigating the primary, said there was evidence of possible criminality in the 2019 mayoral primary. Last year, a judge ordered a new Democratic primary in a state representative race over allegations of absentee ballot fraud. In 2017, a judge ordered that a Democratic primary for City Council seats be rerun after a single absentee ballot, which was improperly handled, decided the race.The incumbent mayor, Joe Ganim, was first elected in 1991 and served until 2003. He was convicted on federal corruption-related charges, resigned and spent seven years in prison. In 2015, he mounted a comeback and has been mayor ever since.“We’ve been faced with a lot of disappointment, just over and over and over and over again,” said Joel Monge, 23, who runs Bridgeport Memes, a popular social media page.The current legal fight started after the September primary in which Mr. Ganim beat his opponent, John Gomes, by 251 votes. Mr. Gomes challenged the outcome in court, citing the video clips, which were taken from municipal surveillance cameras stationed near the city’s four absentee ballot drop boxes. A clip appeared on social media days after the primary, leading Mr. Gomes’s lawyers to file a lawsuit to get all 2,100 hours of tape on the drop boxes.Judge Clark ruled that just two women made or were directly involved in 15 incidents of drop boxes being stuffed with ballots. He wrote that the videos showed “credible evidence that the ballots were being ‘harvested’” — a process by which third-party individuals gather and submit completed absentee ballots in bulk, rather than individual voters submitting them for themselves, in violation of election laws.Both women, the judge wrote, were “partisans” for Mr. Ganim.Bill Bloss, Mr. Gomes’s lawyer, said his own review of the surveillance videos showed that no more than 420 people submitted ballots at Bridgeport drop boxes, but at least 1,253 ballots were submitted there.Mr. Ganim denied any involvement. “I was as shocked as everyone when the video came out,” he said.Both candidates said they were dismayed by the videos, and both men acknowledge that some of their supporters submitted multiple ballots.“On both sides, there is video of the irregularities,” Mr. Ganim said. He added: “That’s not acceptable. We all want everyone’s vote to count. We all want fair elections.”Mr. Gomes said his supporters had acted legally and had been submitting ballots for family members. The entire scandal is unfortunate, he said, adding, “Another black eye for Bridgeport.”But the judge’s order focuses on Mr. Ganim’s supporters, some of whom appear to have submitted many ballots, many times.“These instances do not appear to the court to be random,” Judge Clark wrote. “They appear to be conscious acts with partisan purpose.”As a result of the primary confusion, choosing the city’s next mayor has become exceedingly complicated.On Tuesday, the general election ballot will feature four candidates: Mr. Ganim; Mr. Gomes, now running as an Independent; David Herz, a Republican; and Lamond Daniels, an unaffiliated candidate.If Mr. Gomes wins the general election, he intends to withdraw his complaint about the Democratic primary and, if necessary, formally ask the judge to cancel his order for a new vote. In that scenario, presumably, Mr. Gomes would just become mayor.If Mr. Gomes does not win on Tuesday, but does win the second primary, he would advance to a second general election as the Democratic nominee. (Mr. Ganim would still be on the ballot, this time with the New Movement Party, according to Rowena White, his campaign spokeswoman.)Alternatively, if Mr. Ganim wins the general election on Tuesday, and then wins the second primary, there would be no second general election, Mr. Bloss said. Mr. Ganim would be re-elected.If one of the other two general election candidates wins on Tuesday, Bridgeport would hold a new Democratic primary and then a new general election.Officials have yet to decide when a second primary would occur. Mr. Ganim or the city could still appeal the judge’s order calling for the new vote. And both campaigns would need time to get back into gear, even for a do-over vote.For voters, the bizarre election spectacle has been dispiriting.“There’s just not the checks and balances,” said Anthony L. Bennett, the lead pastor of Mount Aery Baptist Church, adding, “It’s a great city, with great people, that has had a troubling history with unchecked and unaccountable governmental leadership.”Officials are trying to regain voters’ confidence. This week, Stephanie Thomas, the Connecticut secretary of state, appointed a temporary election monitor to oversee the mayoral election.“The public should know that everything that can be done is being done,” Ms. Thomas said.But critics noted that many absentee ballots have already been submitted for the general election — and questioned how one person could appropriately monitor the whole election.And election skeptics across the country, who have long pushed to restrict voting by absentee ballot, have seized upon Judge Clark’s ruling.They argue that Bridgeport — a historically Democratic city in a deeply Democratic state — is just one of the first places that absentee ballot fraud has been caught on camera.“That this happened here is beyond reasonable doubt,” Elon Musk wrote on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. “The only question is how common it is.”That worries many Democrats in Connecticut, including Mr. Ganim, who noted that many of his constituents struggle to access voting places on Election Day and need the option of absentee ballots. They may have health concerns, he said, or cannot get enough time off work to vote.Many would-be voters in Bridgeport believe they have been let down by the government once again.“A lot of people in Bridgeport just don’t vote in general just because they always assume Joe Ganim is going to win,” said Mr. Monge, who runs Bridgeport Memes.But, he said, the videos had angered many of his friends, perhaps spurring them to participate: “I think a lot of people are going to go out and vote.” More

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      Did Fake Donors Give Eric Adams Real Money? The F.B.I. Wants to Know.

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      A search at the home of Mayor Eric Adams’s fund-raising chief sought information about a so-called straw donor scheme.It is a type of scheme that took down New York’s lieutenant governor last year, and sank the 2013 mayoral campaign of a top Democratic contender: the use of so-called straw donors to funnel illegal contributions to candidates from secret sources.Now, for the second time, the campaign of Mayor Eric Adams is being scrutinized for the same thing.On Thursday, the F.B.I. searched the home of Brianna Suggs, Mr. Adams’s chief fund-raiser, as part of an investigation into whether his campaign had received illegal foreign campaign contributions from the Turkish government and Turkish nationals, disguised as coming from U.S. donors who had not actually given their own money, according to a search warrant.And in July, six men were indicted in Manhattan in connection with a similar scheme, accused of funneling thousands to Mr. Adams’s campaign. Two brothers have pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor conspiracy charge in the case, and the news outlet The City and other organizations have found additional inconsistencies in donations to the mayor’s campaign.Neither Mr. Adams nor Ms. Suggs have been accused of wrongdoing, and Mr. Adams has denied any knowledge of illegal contributions. But both investigations appear to be focused on whether donors who were eager to get Mr. Adams’s attention sought to mask large donations by funneling them through straw donors — and on who might have coordinated that effort.The inquiries also raise questions about whether Mr. Adams’s campaign was properly vetting its donations to root out abuse. Andrew Yang’s rival 2021 mayoral campaign had two staff members vet donations over $100, according to a person who was familiar with the matter.A lawyer for Mr. Adams’s 2021 campaign, Vito Pitta, said in an email that the campaign had worked to flag and investigate any questionable contributions rigorously. Mr. Pitta said the campaign had received over 10,000 donations, and had worked to match handwriting and signatures, review donors’ affirmation forms and more.In New York City, small donations are particularly appealing. A generous matching program provides $8 in public funds for every $1 donated. That turns the maximum matched donation of $250 into $2,250, a potential enticement for anyone seeking to multiply their money.“That’s probably the dumbest way to try to funnel money into trying to influence a candidate,” said John Kaehny, the executive director of the government watchdog group Reinvent Albany. “They’re all looked at by the Campaign Finance Board, which has the most extensive vetting and audit process in the United States. I think it’s actually a sign of amateurism.”The city’s Campaign Finance Board examines donations closely and has pored over those to Mr. Adams’s first mayoral campaign.Mr. Adams, a moderate Democrat and former police captain, has been involved in politics for decades, and his fund-raising tactics have repeatedly pushed the boundaries of campaign-finance and ethics laws.As a state senator, he became embroiled in a scandal after a committee he led helped choose a provider of video-lottery machines at Aqueduct Racetrack.And according to an indictment in the Manhattan case, a retired police inspector who worked and socialized with Mr. Adams told one prospective donor that Mr. Adams “doesn’t want to do anything if he doesn’t get 25 Gs” — a reference to the $25,000 minimum he expected for attending a campaign fund-raising event.The early-morning search at Ms. Suggs’s Brooklyn home came as part of a broad public corruption investigation. Ms. Suggs, 25, is in the mayor’s inner circle and close with Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Mr. Adams’s longtime top aide and confidante, who has taken an active role in his campaigns and those of others.The warrant suggested that foreign nationals had made campaign contributions through a straw donor scheme.The warrant authorized agents to seize evidence related to payments or reimbursements made to employees of KSK Construction Group in Brooklyn, “or other persons serving as conduits for campaign contributions to the Adams Campaign originating from Turkish nationals.”City campaign finance records reflect contributions to Mr. Adams’s first mayoral campaign from 11 KSK employees, all on May 7, 2021, totaling nearly $14,000. Nine of the 11 were in the identical amount of $1,250; most were eligible to earn matching funds for the campaign, the records show.Ten years ago, John Liu, the city comptroller at the time, was a top contender for mayor when an investigation into his campaign uncovered a scheme to funnel money through straw donors.Two of his former associates were convicted in the scheme in 2013, including Jia Hou, a former Liu campaign treasurer who was in her 20s. Mr. Liu, who is now a state senator representing a Queens district, was not charged, but his mayoral campaign never recovered and he finished fourth in the Democratic primary.Last year, Brian Benjamin, New York’s lieutenant governor at the time, resigned after he was indicted in what federal prosecutors described as a brazen scheme that appeared to involve straw donors. Mr. Benjamin was accused of accepting thousands of dollars in illegal donations from developer for his 2020 State Senate campaign and his unsuccessful 2021 bid for New York City comptroller, the indictment said. (A federal judge later dismissed bribery charges against Mr. Benjamin, but let two counts of falsifying records related to straw donations stand.)Chris Coffey, a Democratic political strategist and Mr. Yang’s campaign manager, said donors did not always understand that it was illegal to contribute money in someone else’s name.“Donors are often oblivious to campaign finance,” he said. “They think it’s like donating to a charity where you can be reimbursed. It’s added pressure for every campaign to make sure folks know the rules.”Whether Mr. Adams knew any details about potential straw donors to his campaign, he has given the appearance that he is open to being influenced, Mr. Kaehny of Reinvent Albany said.“There’s a big concern that the city is for sale and that New York has gone back to the bad old days where pay to play and bribery were just a part of political life,” he said. More