Foley Square in lower Manhattan is a natural loitering point for the constant stream of visitors arriving back on the island after walking the Brooklyn Bridge. And on Wednesday morning, more than a few are drawn to a bank of photographers and camera crews gathered at the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse.
Time and time again they ask a photographer who they are all waiting for and look either puzzled or crestfallen when told the star turn is Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, who is hearing federal charges of historic fraud and corruption. Since 1665, 110 people have served as mayor of New York. Adams is the first to face an indictment.
Across the street, a small band of protesters stand with their signs and wait patiently for more than an hour. Two wedding parties walked by in a procession behind the newly-weds, drawing applause from strangers.
[ New York mayor Eric Adams accused of taking bribes and gifts from Turkish sourcesOpens in new window ]
This corner of the city is used to hosting legal hearings – the courthouse on Centre Street where Donald Trump’s highly publicised felony trial took place in April is just a few minutes’ walk away. This hearing provoked nothing like the same public circus but, since he was elected as mayor of the city in 2021, Adams has been a controversial presence: a flamboyant bon viveur who was fond of clubbing and fine dining and who interpreted at least part of his role as both a figurehead and tour guide for the delights of the city. “There are only two types of Americans,” he has proclaimed. “Those who live in New York and those who wish they could.”
The line carried echoes of John Updike’s pithy observation that New Yorkers believe that people living elsewhere “have to be, in some way, kidding”.
Adams is a son of the city, having emerged from the most poverty-ridden section of 1960s Brooklyn to flip a life of juvenile delinquency into a 20-year career with the NYPD, after which he pursued a life in politics with startling success. But his mayoral policies – cuts to city libraries and school budgets; rent raises by the city’s Rent Guidelines Board (a nine person committee comprised of mayoral appointees) which drew protests in June and amounted to a 9 per cent rise in rent in the three years since Adams took office – hardly reflected him as a champion of the people.
In September 2023 he warned that the influx of migrants “will destroy New York city”. He also granted rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, currently languishing in a Brooklyn waterfront jail on a series of sex trafficking and other charges, the fabled key to New York city just last year, a decision that has not aged well. Even Adams’s go-to metaphor sounds strange in a city whose past two decades have been very much defined by its recovery from the horrifying events of 9/11.
“I’m the pilot. And all you are passengers. You better pray that this plane lands. Stop praying that it crashes.”
It all leaves Adams in a strange place: still purporting to serve a sceptical public who heard him characterised this week by late night satirist John Oliver as “arguably the weirdest mayor in this city’s history”.
When Adams emerged from courthouse on Wednesday, he did not stop to speak to media and ignored the chants from across the street of “Eric the Corruptor”
Last week an investigation that began almost a year ago ignited with the dramatic news that US attorney Damian Williams had named mayor Adams as the sole defendant in a five-count federal unsealed indictment in which a grand jury charged that starting in 2014, while he was borough president of Brooklyn, Adams had accepted what are classed as “improper valuable benefits”.
In short, he is accused of accepting the benefits of luxury travel and stays in snazzy hotels valued at $100,000 from Turkish business interests. The indictment argues that the reason for these gifts was that Adams could help the Turkish community in the city hurry through the opening of their consulate without the requisite fire inspection ahead of a visit by the country’s president Recep Erdogan. He also faces charges of accepting illegal donations to his election campaign.
Adams has denied any wrongdoing but is in the centre of a firestorm. On Wednesday, assistant US attorney Hagan Scotten said in court that it is “likely” further charges will be brought.
When Adams emerged from courthouse on Wednesday, he did not stop to speak to media and ignored the chants from across the street of “Eric the Corruptor”.
“You’re a disgrace,” one protester called through a megaphone. “You’re a complete disgrace. And any leader that stands beside you is a disgrace. We cannot act like those Donald Trump lovers who stand by him throughout everything. This man is crooked! His whole administration is resigning and we will not have him as mayor of New York ... We will not accept this any more.”
But Adams has said he won’t be going anywhere, ignoring the fact that several of the inner circle of his administration have either stepped down or signalled their intention to do so, and responding sharply to the call last week by New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that he should step down.
“For anyone who self-righteously claims people charged with serious crimes should not be in jail to now say that the second black mayor of New York should resign because of rumours and innuendo – without even a single charge being filed – is the height of hypocrisy,” Adams retorted. “I am leading this city to protect it from exactly that kind of phoney politics.”
It’s a bold line to take. Adams has acquired Alex Spiro as his lead counsel. His fees – clocking in at $2,000 an hour – will not, it was clarified, be paid for by the city. Adams’s salary is about $250,000 a year but his net worth is estimated at $10 million, achieved from additional income from book sales and speaking engagements.
Spiro has filed a motion to dismiss. In a press conference, Spiro said Adams had, a full decade ago, accepted nothing more than commonplace courtesies extended to public figures. “Congressman get upgrades. They get corner suites; they get better tables at restaurants. They get free appetisers. They have their iced tea filled up,” he said, arguing these perks are not federal crimes.
“Gratuities are not federal crimes. They do not violate federal law,” he said before hinting at a broader reason behind the charges.
“That’s what indictments are – lawyers in a room just typing up what they want to accuse someone of. They are just so excited that they had to leak it to the media. When they did that they violated their ethical obligations and it exposes them to what is really going on here. There are serious repercussions for leaking grand jury evidence. What do they do next? They send 12 federal agents to Gracie Mansion? Breaking news! They are raiding Gracie Mansion. You should ask themselves why they are doing that. Why are they tipping off the media every time they take someone’s cell phone?”
It all boils down to a very-Gotham style legal case. One of Adams’s signature moves was to make his entrance to a public event to the background sound of the Jay-Z/Alicia Key’s homage to the city, Empire State of Mind. The chances are that the soundtrack will be suspended as he tries to assure his people that there is nothing to see here. But all eyes are on Eric Adams. “I’ve got the swagger,” he was fond of telling people on the way up.
He is going to need it now.
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