The indictment of Mayor Eric Adams unsealed on Thursday provides a banquet of strange, amusing and troubling vignettes unearthed during the investigation by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and the F.B.I. Here are 10 of them:
1. Suspiciously cheap tickets — and an upgrade
On the June day in 2021 when Mr. Adams won the Democratic primary for mayor and all but assured his ascension to City Hall, his thoughts strayed.
An Adams aide messaged the general manager of Turkish Airlines in New York, Cenk Öcal, to book flights for Mr. Adams to Istanbul. The staff member fits the description of Rana Abbasova, then Mr. Adams’s liaison to Turkey.
Mr. Öcal said he would charge the mayor $50, a price so low as to appear preposterous. And appearances mattered.
“No, dear. $50? What? Quote a proper price,” Ms. Abbasova responded. “His every step is being watched right now. $1,000 or so. Let it be somewhat real. We don’t want them to say he is flying for free. At the moment, the media’s attention is on Eric.”
Mr. Adams ended up paying about $2,200 for tickets for himself and his romantic partner, tickets that were promptly upgraded to business class and would have otherwise cost more than $15,000.
When Ms. Abbasova asked Mr. Öcal where he would recommend that Mr. Adams stay in Istanbul, the manager suggested the Four Seasons.
When Ms. Abbasova argued that the hotel was too expensive, Mr. Öcal responded, “Why does he care? He is not going to pay. His name will not be on anything either.”
“Super,” Ms. Abbasova responded.
Days later, Mr. Adams canceled the trip.
Since 2016, prosecutors say, Mr. Adams has received more than $100,000 in travel benefits from Turkish interests that he did not disclose as required by law. Prosecutors say that he repaid his benefactors with official acts as Brooklyn borough president, mayor-elect and mayor.
2. A New York election win was greeted with glee in Turkey
“I’m going to go and talk to our elders in Ankara about how we can turn this into an advantage for our country’s lobby,” Arda Sayiner, a businessman and self-described brand adviser, told another businessman the day after Mr. Adams was elected mayor in November 2021.
The Turkish foreign minister was “personally paying attention to him” and Mr. Adams “should not bother with” his other Turkish contacts, Reyhan Özgür, then the Turkish consul general, told Ms. Abbasova around the same time.
3. A ‘spiritual journey’ to Ghana, with a layover in Istanbul
Before Mr. Adams took office in 2022, he and his partner traveled to Ghana on what he described as a “spiritual journey.” A spokesman for Mr. Adams said at the time that the mayor-elect had paid for the trip itself, but that as a matter of policy, they would not disclose the receipts.
In fact, Turkish Airlines footed most of the $14,000 bill for the business-class tickets, according to the indictment. During a nine-hour layover in Istanbul, Mr. Özgür arranged for a driver in a BMW to take Mr. Adams and his partner to a high-end restaurant.
Mr. Özgür promised Ms. Abbasova that he would keep the layover confidential.
4. Ignoring defects in a tower’s fire safety system
In September 2021, Mr. Özgür asked Mr. Adams to get Fire Department approval for a new high-rise Turkish Consulate in Midtown Manhattan, despite the fact that it had “serious” fire safety defects, according to the department.
Time was of the essence. Mr. Özgür wanted the consulate to open in time for a visit by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tied to the United Nations General Assembly.
In a phone call, Mr. Özgür told Ms. Abbasova that it was now Mr. Adams’s “turn” to help Turkey. She related the message to Mr. Adams, who responded, “I know.”
“Adams did as instructed,” according to prosecutors, and repeatedly messaged the fire commissioner, who was trying to keep his job under Mr. Adams.
A Fire Department official who oversaw safety inspections was told that he would lose his job if he did not facilitate the building’s opening, even though a department employee had deemed the building “not safe to occupy.” The official did as he was told.
“You are a true friend of Turkey,” Mr. Özgür messaged Mr. Adams on Sept. 10.
Mr. Erdogan attended the skyscraper’s ribbon cutting 10 days later.
5. A surprising endorsement of illegal donations
As Mr. Adams was raising money for his 2021 mayoral campaign, Mr. Sayiner, the brand adviser, suggested to Ms. Abbasova via text message that he raise illegal foreign donations for the candidate.
Ms. Abbasova suspected that Mr. Adams “wouldn’t get involved in such games,” since “they might cause a big stink later on.”
She promised to “ask anyways.”
To her surprise, Mr. Adams signed on.
Last November, the F.B.I. searched Ms. Abbasova’s home and a short while later she turned against the mayor and began cooperating with prosecutors.
6. A policy of hiding communications
Mr. Adams made sure to cover his tracks, the indictment says.
During a 2019 text exchange concerning another possible trip to Turkey, with the arrangements to be made by Mr. Öcal, Ms. Abbasova reminded Mr. Adams to “please delete all messages you send me.”
“Always do,” Mr. Adams responded.
7. A restaurant meeting and a quest for money
Less than two weeks after he took office, Mr. Adams met Ms. Abbasova and Mr. Sayiner in a private room at a high-end restaurant in New York City to discuss the collection of foreign donations.
At the meeting, prosecutors say, Mr. Sayiner talked about previous efforts to collect campaign money for Mr. Adams in Turkey. He noted that he could collect more foreign contributions in the future. And he said that he could raise still more for the mayor’s 2025 campaign if Mr. Adams visited Turkey and met with businesspeople there.
“Adams welcomed the offer of foreign contributions,” the indictment said.
8. Happy birthday, Mr. Sayiner
In September 2023, Mr. Adams met a group of foreign donors at a dinner in New York City purportedly hosted by “international sustainability leaders.”
The price was $5,000 a head. Beforehand, Mr. Sayiner collected payments from the attendees, many of them foreign nationals, according to the indictment, and then used some of the money to make straw donations to the campaign.
Mr. Sayiner appears to have written about the event for Hurriyet, a Turkish newspaper. He was given a birthday cake.
“As a birthday gift from Adams, with whom I cut my cake, I got a promise to visit Turkey again before the end of the year,” Mr. Sayiner wrote.
9. Staying silent on Armenia’s national trauma
In April 2022, as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day was approaching, Mr. Özgür repeatedly asked Ms. Abbasova for assurances that Mr. Adams would not speak about the event, which is a highly sensitive subject for the Turkish government.
Ms. Abbasova “confirmed that Adams would not make a statement” and he “did not make such a statement,” according to prosecutors.
In 2021, President Biden recognized the mass killings more than a century ago as a genocide, despite efforts by President Erdogan to prevent the announcement. Mr. Erdogan has repeatedly denied that the slaughter amounted to genocide.
10. A forgotten phone password
After F.B.I. agents seized Mr. Adams’s personal phone in November 2023, he claimed he was unable to remember the password because he had recently changed it. He had changed it, he said, to prevent staff members from inadvertently or intentionally deleting anything because of the investigation.
“As the federal investigation into the criminal conduct of Eric Adams, the defendant, continued, so did efforts to frustrate that investigation,” the indictment reads.
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