NEW YORK — A muted but defiant Mayor Eric Adams, in back-to-back appearances inside a federal courthouse in Manhattan and outside its granite facade Friday, professed his innocence of criminal charges including bribery and fraud and stood by as his lawyer railed against the evidence in a case that threatens to topple his embattled administration.
“I am not guilty, Your Honor,” Adams said at his midday arraignment before Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker in a 26th-floor courtroom in lower Manhattan as reporters looked on from the gallery and via livestreams in several overflow courtrooms.
The indictment against Adams, a 57-page description by prosecutors of free, or heavily discounted, overseas trips and illegal campaign contributions from Turkey in return for political favors, has upended New York City’s political landscape. The will-he-or-won’t-he questions about whether Adams would resign seemed to overshadow even the upcoming presidential election as a tumultuous week in the city drew to a close.
Adams gave no sign that he was considering stepping down, and such an outcome seemed unlikely to happen at least before his next scheduled court appearance Wednesday, when his lawyer has indicated he plans to attack the government’s case.
“This case isn’t even a real case,” the lawyer, Alex Spiro, said to reporters outside the courthouse. “This is the ‘airline upgrade corruption’ case.”
At around the same time, federal and state agents seized the phone of the mayor’s chief adviser and perhaps closest ally, Ingrid P. Lewis-Martin, a friend of the mayor’s for 40 years and his deputy when he was Brooklyn borough president.
Lewis-Martin was served with a subpoena and told about the search Friday when she landed at Kennedy airport after returning from a vacation in Japan, and was met by two sets of investigators, one state and one federal.
She is considered by colleagues to be a fiercely loyal lieutenant to Adams who has at times alienated staff members and pushed the limits of ethics rules.
The five-count indictment against the mayor charges that his travel deals with Turkish Airlines began when he was borough president and continued when he became mayor in 2022.
The charges against Adams include bribery conspiracy, fraud and soliciting illegal campaign donations from individuals in Turkey via “straw donors” in the United States. He is also accused of fraudulently accepting public matching funds for his campaign.
In return, the indictment says, Adams helped Turkish officials in dealings with city agencies, including by obtaining safety clearances from the Fire Department for a new high-rise Turkish consulate building in Manhattan.
The indictment describes interactions between Turkish individuals and a member of Adams’ staff. The staff member is believed to be Rana Abbasova, an aide in the mayor’s international affairs office who previously was a liaison to the Turkish community for Adams. She is believed to be cooperating with prosecutors.
Spiro, the lawyer, seemed to question Abbasova’s credibility in his remarks Friday.
“The entire body of evidence is one staffer — one staffer that said there was a conversation,” he said. “What you have not heard is that that staffer was lying. The government is in possession of that lie. When that staffer was first interviewed, that staffer said Mayor Adams knew nothing about this, he was not involved in this, and that he is innocent.”
Spiro said he intended to demand evidence at a court hearing scheduled for Wednesday about the staff member’s past statements. He also said he planned to ask that the case be dismissed.
The mayor left the courthouse without further comment. He seemed eager to return to a normal schedule as soon as possible, releasing a list of events scheduled for Friday afternoon, including a birthday celebration at a senior center in Harlem and meetings with a judicial committee and ethnic media outlets.
Elsewhere, New Yorkers watched events without precedent unfold. The editorial boards of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post published editorials urging Adams to stay in office as he fought the charges. Others, including the editorial board of The New York Times, have said the mayor should resign.
A growing number of city and state officials have called for his resignation or removal, with Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York adding his voice to the chorus Friday.
Gov. Kathy Hochul — the one official, aside from the mayor himself, with the power to remove him — was guarded in a statement issued Thursday. She urged the mayor to “take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward.”
Others pondered the effects of a resignation on the broader political chessboard. The Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the mayor’s closest supporters, suggested Thursday that Adams’ defiance could hurt Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats in this year’s elections.
And the business leaders, who had embraced Adams as an ally since he announced his candidacy for mayor, seemed to maintain a quiet support, wary of more left-leaning candidates who might succeed him.
The arraignment hearing, a commonplace and largely perfunctory proceeding in the vast majority of criminal cases, was elevated to a spectacle Friday.
“Good afternoon, Mayor Adams,” Parker said.
“Good afternoon,” he replied.
In a trademark fitted dark suit, Adams listened intently as he was ordered to appear in court when required and warned that failure to do so could lead to jail time, as with all defendants.
He was released and not required, as is common in many cases, to surrender his passport, an indication that prosecutors do not consider New York City’s mayor as likely to flee.
The hearing lasted barely 20 minutes, with Adams seated beside Spiro. When it ended, the mayor stood, buttoned his suit jacket, smiled tightly at a court officer and left the courtroom.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2024 The New York Times Company