Federal agents on Wednesday zeroed in on the highest ranks of the administration of Mayor Eric Adams, searching a home and seizing the phones of numerous officials as part of investigations unrelated to the continuing corruption inquiry into the mayor, people with knowledge of the matter said.
Among the officials the federal investigators sought information from were the city’s police commissioner, the first deputy mayor, the schools chancellor, the deputy mayor for public safety and a senior adviser to the mayor who is one of his closest confidants, the people said.
The agents also searched the home of a consultant who is the brother of both the schools chancellor and one of the deputy mayors, the people said.
The nature of the investigations is unclear, but it appears that one is focused on the senior City Hall officials and the other touches on the police commissioner, the people said.
Tarik Sheppard, the Police Department’s top spokesman, said he could not confirm the search or subpoena of the police commissioner, but said the agency would cooperate with the investigation.
Representatives of the other officials — the first deputy mayor, Sheena Wright; her partner with whom she lives, Schools Chancellor David C. Banks; the deputy mayor for public safety, Philip Banks III; and a senior adviser to the mayor, Timothy Pearson — could not be reached or declined to comment.
The consultant, Terence Banks, a retired M.T.A. official, recently opened a government and community relations firm aimed at closing a gap “between New York’s intricate infrastructure and political landscape.” He, too, could not be reached for comment.
Philip Banks, David Banks and Terence Banks are brothers.
Several of the officials’ homes were searched, the people said. Others had their phones seized or records of their communications subpoenaed.
None has been accused of any crime.
Several of the people with knowledge of the matter said the searches were unrelated to the federal corruption inquiry focused on the mayor and his campaign fund-raising, but appeared to further entangle the Adams administration in a morass of criminal inquiries.
Lisa Zornberg, City Hall’s chief counsel, said in a statement that the investigators had not indicated that the mayor or his staff were “targets of any investigation.”
“As a former member of law enforcement, the mayor has repeatedly made clear that all members of the team need to follow the law,” said Ms. Zornberg, referring to Mr. Adams’s career in the Police Department, from which he retired as a captain.
The new investigations were being conducted by prosecutors from the office of the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, which is separately investigating the mayor and his campaign fund-raising.
The full scope of that investigation also remains unclear. But it has focused at least in part on whether Mr. Adams and his campaign conspired with the Turkish government to collect illegal foreign donations and whether Mr. Adams, in return, pressured the Fire Department to sign off on a new high-rise Turkish Consulate in Manhattan, despite safety concerns. It has also looked at free flight upgrades Mr. Adams received from Turkish Airlines.
A representative of the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.
Mr. Adams has consistently denied wrongdoing, and the federal authorities have not accused him of any crimes.
The revelation that some of the most senior officials working for Mr. Adams, aides who are personally close to the mayor, are now also the subjects of another unrelated federal investigation will cast a further cloud over an administration already beset by legal problems.
It comes as Mr. Adams is facing a hotly contested Democratic primary next year. On Thursday, political fallout from news of the searches was swift.
Jasmine Gripper and Ana María Archila, the co-directors of the New York Working Families Party, said the investigations are distracting the mayor from focusing on properly running the city.
“Raids, corruption allegations and chaos have become hallmarks of the Adams administration,” they said. “New Yorkers need a mayor that can focus on governing and making people’s lives better, not a mayor that’s fighting a laundry list of corruption allegations.”
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