New York mayor Adams charged in Turkey bribery scheme

US prosecutors have charged New York City mayor Eric Adams with accepting illegal campaign contributions and luxury travel accommodations from Turkish citizens seeking to influence him, capping an investigation that has sent the largest US city’s government into turmoil.

In a 57-page indictment, prosecutors laid out an alleged scheme stretching back to 2014 that helped to underwrite Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign and showered him with free rooms at opulent hotels and meals at high-end restaurants.

In return, Adams pressured city officials to waive safety inspections and allow the country’s new 36-storey consulate to open, prosecutors said.

The Democrat faces five criminal charges and could face decades in prison if found guilty.

Adams, 64, denied wrongdoing and said he would fight the charges in court.

He said he would not step down.

Live Now: https://t.co/dBj6PRBsIg? Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) September 26, 2024

“I will continue to do my job as mayor,” he said at a news conference, where some onlookers called on him to resign.

Turkey’s foreign ministry and president’s office and its embassy in Washington DC had no immediate comment.

Earlier on Thursday, federal agents searched the mayor’s Gracie Mansion home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, according to a Reuters witness.

About a dozen people in business attire were seen walking on the mansion’s grounds with briefcases and duffel bags.

Adams, a former police officer who rose to the rank of captain, is the first of the city’s 110 mayors to be criminally charged while in office.

He could be removed from office by Democratic New York governor Kathy Hochul but the process is complicated, said Pace University Law School professor Bennett Gershman.

According to the indictment, Adams accepted free travel from a Turkish airline worth tens of thousands of dollars while serving as Brooklyn borough president and paid $US600 ($A870) to stay two nights at a luxury suite in the St Regis hotel in Istanbul, well below the actual cost of $US7,000.

Prosecutors said Adams would fly on the Turkish airline even when it was inconvenient.

“You know first stop is always Istanbul,” he wrote in a 2017 text message when his partner expressed that they were flying from New York to Paris through Istanbul.

For his 2021 mayoral campaign, Adams disguised campaign contributions from Turkish sources by funnelling it through US citizens, the indictment said.

Those funds allowed Adams to qualify for an additional $US10 million in public financing.

Damian Williams, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, accused Adams of accepting more than $US100,000 in luxury travel overall.

“This was a multi-year scheme to buy favour with a single New York City politician on the rise,” Williams said at a news conference.

Prosecutors say Adams responded to Turkish concerns.

He cut ties with a community centre in Brooklyn after a Turkish diplomat said it was affiliated with a hostile political movement, according to the indictment, and in 2023 helped a Turkish businessman resolve a permitting issue with the city.

In 2021, Adams, acting on a request by the diplomat, pressured a fire department official to allow the country’s new consulate to open even though it would have failed a fire inspection, the indictment said.

Adams denied wrongdoing and said he was aiming for a public trial to defend himself.

“If it’s foreign donors, I know I don’t take money from foreign donors,” he said.

The case is likely to complicate any Adams bid for re-election in 2025 as other Democratic politicians, including New York City comptroller Brad Lander, plan to challenge him.

US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also a Democrat, became the first member of Congress to urge him to step down.

New York has been in a state of political upheaval for the past month.

Police Commissioner Edward Caban resigned on September 12, a week after FBI agents seized his phone.

Days later, Adams’ chief legal adviser resigned.

On Wednesday, the city’s public schools chief David Banks said he would retire at the end of the year, after the New York Times reported his phones were seized by federal agents.