New York City Mayor Eric Adams was indicted Thursday on federal charges that he accepted bribes and illegal campaign contributions from foreign sources.
The costs marked a shocking fall for Adams, a former police chief who had made his commitment to law and order a cornerstone of his political platform, even as multiple federal investigations into him and members of his inner circle intensified.
Adams has consistently said he is cooperating with the investigations and denies any wrongdoing, despite the ongoing searches, seizures and departures of top members of his administration.
But when the news about the accusation Released Wednesday night, he launched into a defiant defense that he was being targeted by the federal government for his political views, using language similar to that of former President Donald Trump and other politicians accused of crimes.
“I always knew that if I took my stand before New Yorkers, I would be a target — and a target I became,” Adams said in a videotaped speech released Wednesday night, adding that the case was “based on lies.”
Adams has often stressed that he grew up working class. He was one of six children raised by a single mother and has said that he carried a garbage bag full of clothes because he was afraid his family would be evicted.
At 15, he was beaten by police officers after being arrested for trespassing, but the painful encounter left him with a desire to change the system from within, he said. Adams joined the New York City Transit Police in 1984, eventually becoming an officer in the New York Police Department when the Transit Department merged with the larger NYPD.
He rose to the rank of captain and co-founded an activist group called 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, which sought criminal justice reform and condemned police brutality.
He retired from the police in 2006.
Adams, a Democrat, went on to win a seat in the State Senate, representing a district in Brooklyn. He was then elected mayor of Brooklyn in 2013 and served in that position while campaigning for mayor.
His run for mayor was marked by embarrassing headlines about whether he actually lived in New York City. It was reported that Adams often slept in his Brooklyn Borough Hall office because he co-owned an apartment in New Jersey. To quell speculation about his whereabouts, Adams offered reporters a tour of a basement apartment in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn that he said was his primary residence.
His moderate mayoral campaign hinged on his rise from a troubled upbringing, through policing and politics. Though he has sometimes been critical of the police department where he once served and his experiences with police brutality, Adams has rejected progressive calls to “defund the police” and has stressed that he was proud of his time in law enforcement.
Adams was elected mayor in 2021, becoming the second Black mayor of New York City after David Dinkins. Adams succeeded former Mayor Bill de Blasio.
He took office as the city continued to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, with the tourism industry, economy and school system facing major challenges, and an overwhelming sense that crime was high in the city.
Throughout it all, Adams remained committed to law enforcement, sporting what he described as a “swag” of flashy suits, earrings and live music at his press conferences.
For a time, some political observers saw Adams as the kind of moderate Democrat who could provide a model for a party struggling to balance the divide between its progressive and centrist wings. But as the years passed, Adams’ popularity waned, even as the city recovered from the pandemic’s job losses and crime surge.
He began to attract ridicule for his plan to tackle rats —a perennial problem in New York City—as it piles up health violations because of rat infestations in his Brooklyn row house.
His administration became entangled in efforts to house tens of thousands of people. international migrants that overwhelmed the city’s homeless shelters, with Adams at odds with President Joe Biden over funding and a strategy to handle the influx of new residents. He began imposing restrictions on migrant shelter stays and filed a lawsuit challenging a unique rule requiring the city to house the homeless.
Federal investigations into the Adams administration first came to light about a year ago, when FBI agents raided the home of his top fundraiser. Days later, agents seized the mayor’s phones and iPad as he left an event in Manhattan.
Earlier this month, federal investigators seized electronic devices from the city’s police chief, the schools chancellor, the deputy mayor of public safety, the first deputy mayor and other trusted confidants of Adams, both inside and outside City Hall. A flurry of high-profile departures followed.
Adams was indicted on Thursday on charges he accepted illegal campaign contributions and bribes from foreigners in exchange for favors, including helping Turkish officials obtain fire safety approvals for a new diplomatic building in the city.
