The Free Press
It is about 30 degrees in Corona, Queens, but teenagers, shop owners, and cafe diners are running outside to catch a glimpse of Mayor Eric Adams strolling down their sidewalk. A woman in brown earmuffs clutches her heart as he glides past her, flanked by an entourage of security guards.
“Oh my god,” two high schoolers squeal as they pull out their smartphones to capture pictures of the mayor.
This is the kind of fanfare I witnessed when I tagged along with Adams in early January for a walk-through of a seedy strip of Queens. The mayor’s fan club hasn’t shrunk just because he was hit with a federal indictment for corruption last September and is now facing growing calls to resign. On Wednesday, as Adams appeared before a federal judge to argue for the dismissal of his case, I spoke with a dozen New Yorkers who mostly shrugged off the charges that he took bribes from a foreign country, so he could live the high life.
When I find Randon, a 30-year-old Californian waiting for the 1 train in Midtown, I ask him what he thinks of the more than $100,000 complimentary upgrades Adams allegedly received through Turkish Airlines. He pops his head around the potted plant he’s carrying like he’s confused. “That’s something I would do,” he said. “That sounds so normal.”
The next New Yorker I meet is a 25-year-old electrician from Corona, Queens, named Marcos. “No one really cares,” he quipped. “They all do it.”
Later, I meet a janitor named Raymond tidying up Penn Station in Manhattan. He looks up from his dustbin to tell me, “I’m sure some New Yorkers care; I’m just not one of them.”
It’s true Adams likes nice things. Last time I saw him on that tour of Queens, he showed up wearing Ferragamo loafers and a diamond stud in his left ear. He gets his nails done in Washington Heights and takes ice baths at at FloLo Holistic in Midtown. In Queens that day, he even found time to get his eyebrows threaded. Meanwhile, online commenters have speculated that his watch—one of many he wears regularly—is valued at more than $20,000.
He has just one problem: As the mayor of New York City, he makes $258,750 a year. Here, where even singles making $150,000 or more are fleeing, this is not enough to live large. Especially for our “nightlife mayor,” who hosted a Fashion Week party for Anna Wintour at Gracie Mansion, and once dined at an upscale Italian restaurant on 14 separate occasions in a single month in 2022.
Maybe that’s why, when a Turkish dignitary offered him fancy travel experiences—including free upgrades to business class, a “heavily discounted” stay at the St. Regis Istanbul, and “a boat tour to the Princes’ Islands in the Sea of Marmara,” as the federal indictment against Adams alleges—he said yes.
Some of the gifts he allegedly accepted date back to when he was Brooklyn Borough President from 2014 until 2021. The 57-page indictment accuses him of the following:
Receiving more than $100,000 in free business-class fares from Turkish Airlines from 2016 to 2021, including to Ghana, Hungary, and China.
Accepting a free stay in the Cosmopolitan Suite at the St. Regis Istanbul in 2019. The suite boasts his and hers sinks, a dining area, and views of the Sea of Marmara valued at $3,000 for two nights.
Directing foreign nationals to funnel campaign donations through U.S. citizens and green card holders.
Funneling those foreign donations through New York City’s Matching Funds Program, which kicks in an extra $8 to a candidate’s campaign for every single dollar raised. Because these extra funds come from taxpayer money, the Adams campaign was able to turn these small dollar, foreign donations into “more than $10,000,000 in public funds.”
Intervening with the New York Fire Department to permit the Turkish consulate to occupy a skyscraper that had not passed a fire safety inspection—even though an inspector claimed it had more than “60 defects” with its fire code and was “not safe to occupy.” The building, which reportedly cost the Turkish government nearly $300 million to build, opened in 2021.
After Donald Trump was reelected president last November, Adams started praising him on Tucker Carlson’s show. He also criticized the Biden administration for bringing the migrant crisis to his city—possibly in the hope that Trump would reward his blandishments with a pardon.
Whatever his motivations, it was a shrewd move. This month, the Trump administration filed a request asking the United States attorney for the Southern District to dismiss the charges against Adams. But the fallout has been ugly. Adams’s own staff at City Hall is rebelling, and four of his top deputies have resigned. In the Justice Department, at least seven prosecutors have also quit after refusing to drop the case against him.
Earlier this week, fellow Democrat and governor Kathy Hochul indicated she might step in. On Tuesday, she met with city leaders to discuss the possibility of removing and replacing Adams. If Adams is ousted, a line of succession would kick in, starting with Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate and a longtime foe of Adams. A Black Lives Matter protester with a lengthy arrest record for civil disobedience, Williams has declared himself a Democratic Socialist in the past.
But today, it turned out Adams is still in luck—outlets are reporting that Hochul is poised to tell the mayor he can keep his job as long as he complies with new guardrails—including oversight from a newly created deputy for city affairs in the inspector general’s office, who will keep tabs on the Adams administration.
It’s a steep fall for Adams, who campaigned as a moderate that would make New York safe again. In November 2021, he was elected by a 31 percent margin. But even though the Democratic Socialists of America are now selling T-shirts that read “New York Hates Eric Adams,” that’s not how most of the locals I spoke to feel.
In September, a few days after federal prosecutors announced his charges, the mayor turned up at a church service in the Bronx and got a standing ovation from the congregation. And this week, most New Yorkers I talked to seemed unfazed by the scandal roiling City Hall.
A 66-year-old man named Arnold, who I caught at Penn Station waiting for his train back to Queens, told me he voted for Adams—in part because he found his hard-luck childhood story “inspiring.” Adams was raised by a single mother, who cleaned houses to support him and his five siblings, who grew up in a rat-infested walk-up in South Jamaica.
“I like what he’s trying to do for the poor. He’s a hard worker, and I believe in him,” Arnold said.
As a construction consultant specializing in “safety engineering,” he said the way Adams pushed through the approval of the Turkish consulate’s fire code is “very serious.” Still, Arnold said he wants to see the process “play out in court.”
“We always have scandals. This is New York. If he says he didn’t do it, then I have to go along with what he says.”
But then, I met a New Yorker who expressed true anguish over Adams’s troubles. Corey Pegues, a retired deputy inspector for the New York City Police Department, said he first met the mayor nearly 30 years ago and once studied alongside him to become a police captain. When I asked if he had read the indictment against his friend, he sighed.
“Yes,” he said. “It was brutal.”
“We all knew he was going to be very successful,” Pegues said—even back in 1995 when they first met at a gathering for 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, a group of police officers trying to reform policing from within. He recalls Adams telling the crowd back then that “he was going to be mayor.”
Now, “He has changed,” Pegues said. “And people change when they get older—but to do a 180 is startling.”
In his victory speech in 2021, Adams recalled his working-class roots—and the hardworking outer-borough residents who largely helped elect him the mayor of New York.
“This campaign was for the person cleaning bathrooms and the dishwasher in the kitchen who feels they are already at the end of their journey,” he said. “I washed dishes. I was beaten by police and sat in their precinct holding cells, certain that my future was already decided, and now I will be the person in charge of that precinct and every other precinct in the City of New York because I’m going to be the mayor of the City of New York.”
When he thought of his friend’s rise and sudden downfall, Pegues sighed. He compared it to a game of cops and robbers.
“You can’t never play the cop and a robber at the same time—you have to pick one,” he told me. “And obviously, if what they’re alleging in the indictment is true, he was trying to play both sides of the fence, and you can’t do that.”
“You have to pick what side of the street you’re going to be,” Pegues added, “a cop or a criminal.”
We’ve also been covering this topic for its legal implications. Read our editorial “Danielle Sassoon’s Courage and the Rule of Law,” and Chris Christie’s op-ed “Eric Adams and Equality Under the Law.”