Good morning. It’s Tuesday. We’ll look at why this week didn’t start well for Mayor Eric Adams. And the suspect in the Gilgo Beach serial killings is due in court on Long Island this morning, with investigators promising they’ll announce a “significant development” after the hearing.
“We had a great week last week,” Mayor Eric Adams told reporters at City Hall on Monday.
But this week? It’s not going well for Adams, and today is only Tuesday.
On Sunday, Ingrid Lewis-Martin resigned. She was Adams’s closest adviser, and he said on Monday that it was “hard to believe” that she would no longer be in the office next to his. But Lewis-Martin has been under investigation at least since September, when investigators from the Manhattan district attorney’s office seized her phones. Prosecutors could seek an indictment soon.
That news again front-burnered the corruption issue, which had hobbled Adams’s administration in the fall and which he had hoped to soldier through.
On Monday, President-elect Donald Trump said he would consider pardoning Adams, who was indicted on federal bribery and corruption charges in September. Trump said the mayor had been treated “pretty unfairly” by federal prosecutors. Adams also said he had “had a great conversation” with Trump’s so-called border czar, and the mayor has recently opened the door to becoming a Republican again. Two of his advisers have been trying to get a ticket to Trump’s inauguration next month, although Adams said “that did not come from City Hall.”
Still, Trump’s comment underscored the fact that Adams appears to have found an ally in Trump — to the dismay of Democrats and some Republicans.
Adams is the first mayor in the city’s history to be indicted. On Monday, he also found himself in the unusual position of having been denied public matching funds for his re-election campaign after the city’s Campaign Finance Board voted to withhold as much as $4.3 million.
That put Adams’s campaign at a significant disadvantage going into the Democratic primary in June, which generally decides who will be the next mayor in a city where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans. Early voting is to start on June 14; regular in-person balloting is scheduled for June 24.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Adams, because his corruption trial is scheduled to begin on April 21.
The conventional wisdom is that the last six to eight weeks before a local primary are the most important for engaging voters. But Adams will presumably be tied up in court during that time, at least during the day.
The corruption allegations will again be in the headlines, and Adams will have to raise money for his legal defense fund and for his campaign. As far as the campaign goes, he is still well positioned. “Our resources are more than everyone else that’s running,” he said on Monday.
But he had been counting on the matching funds to push the amount he could spend to close to $8 million. So far only one Democrat running against him has qualified for matching funds — Scott Stringer, a former city comptroller. Two other candidates, Brad Lander, the current comptroller, and State Senator Zellnor Myrie, say the expect to qualify next month.
It is rare for a mayoral candidate to be denied matching funds. It last happened in 2013, to John Liu, and he ended up finishing in fourth place in the primary. There were differences: It was Liu’s staffers who were accused of wrongdoing. This time, it is the mayor himself who has been accused.
If there was a bright spot in Adams’s week so far, it was — almost absurdly — the rain. The mayor, who last week lifted restrictions on fireworks in the city, downgraded the city’s drought warning to a drought watch. He said he hoped to rescind the drought watch before long.
The city said reservoir levels — which had been stuck just below 60 percent — had climbed to 68.2 percent of capacity on Monday. They are still short of the normal level for this time of year, which is 82.8 percent.
Just under eight-tenths of an inch of rain fell in Central Park from 10 p.m. Sunday through 4 p.m. Monday. That brought the total for December so far to 2.24 inches, which is normal for the middle of the month, said Dominic Ramunni, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. November, with 3.35 inches, came close to normal after a distressingly dry summer and fall, he said.
But Ramunni cautioned against hoping for too much: Don’t expect a white Christmas. Historically, the chances are about one in six. “Right now, I would say maybe one in 50, one in 100,” he said. “Very unlikely.”
Weather
There’s a chance of more rain this morning, then gradual clearing and temperatures in the high 50s. At night, temperatures will drop to the upper 30s.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect through Dec. 25 (Christmas Day).
The latest New York news
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Corruption trial for former lieutenant governor: Former Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin will face trial on federal corruption charges after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down his request to dismiss much of the case.
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Trump’s hush money conviction is upheld: A judge rejected Donald Trump’s argument that a recent Supreme Court ruling had nullified his criminal case in New York, upholding the former and future president’s felony conviction for falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal.
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Private school group apologizes for antisemitism: After criticism from Jewish groups, the National Association of Independent Schools apologized for remarks some speakers made at a conference about diversity and inclusion, and its president said that speakers’ addresses would be vetted in the future.
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The temptation of subway surfing: Thrill-seekers have long climbed on top of moving trains. Now social media has attracted a new generation of daredevils.
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The clock ticks toward congestion pricing: Most drivers will begin paying new congestion tolls on Jan. 5 to reach the heart of Manhattan, if all goes the way state officials want it to.
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Living in an emerald city: Each year, Emily Eerdmans, a design historian, and her husband, Andrew McKeon, an environmentalist, transform their rented Manhattan duplex apartment into a freewheeling holiday bazaar.
Gilgo Beach prosecutor promises a major development
Investigators on Long Island will announce a “significant development” this morning in the investigation of Rex Heuermann, the architectural consultant accused in the Gilgo Beach serial killings.
The Suffolk County district attorney’s office said on Monday that the announcement would happen after a court hearing this morning, but did not provide any more details. The district attorney, Ray Tierney, did not respond to requests for comment.
Heuermann’s lawyer, Michael Brown, said he had not been told what the new development was. Gloria Allred, a lawyer who represents relatives of several victims and has appeared at past indictments, said that she would be at the courthouse but would not elaborate on why.
Heuermann has already been charged in the murders of six women, including one found in Southampton. Prosecutors have been working to secure indictments in the killings of five other people whose remains were found near Gilgo Beach.
Only two of those victims have been identified. My colleague Corey Kilgannon writes that investigators have been trying to tie Heuermann to a DNA profile of one of them, Valerie Mack. Some of her relatives have indicated in recent days that the Suffolk County authorities had been in touch with them.
Heuermann, who has pleaded not guilty to killing the women, remains in jail awaiting a trial.
METROPOLITAN diary
The Friday Dance
Dear Diary:
I live near Union Square, and I walked my dog around the Con Edison loading dock in the mornings before work.
At some point, I became friendly with the manager at the plant. If I saw him, I would greet him with a hug, and we would talk for a minute or two.
When I saw him one Friday, we were both so happy that it was Friday that we just started to dance.
It became a habit. Every Friday, around 7:30 a.m., we would dance. Sometimes, he would “do” the music and sometimes I would. Sometimes it would be a short ditty, and sometimes we would get an audience. (He was a much better dancer than me.)
A few years ago, I was walking down the street, and a woman pointed at me.
“Oh my goodness,” she said. “It’s you!”
I didn’t know her from Adam, and I’m pretty good with faces. Nonetheless, I said hello.
It turned out that she lived across Third Avenue and had happened to see the Friday dance one morning.
After that, she said, every Friday around 7:30 a.m., she would wait with her cat at her window for the Friday Dance to begin.
— Monique Morgan
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Emma G. Fitzsimmons, Hannah Fidelman and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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