Everyone wants to save money on vacation, but steep discounts are rare for most — unless you are a high-profile celebrity, influencer, or, it seems, the mayor of New York City.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams paid only $600 for a two-night stay at the Bentley suite at the luxurious St. Regis Hotel in Istanbul in 2017, federal prosecutors said in an indictment unsealed Thursday.
The stay was worth about $7,000, prosecutors said. That’s about 91% off.
The discount has landed Adams in hot water.
In the indictment, federal prosecutors accuse Adams of engaging in years of public corruption. They say that over the past decade, he accepted gifts from foreign nationals — including complimentary or discounted Turkish Airlines flights, stays at luxury hotels, a spa treatment, meals, and boat trips — in exchange for political favors.
One of these perks was the 2017 stay in the St. Regis’ Bentley Suite. The suite is a collaboration between St. Regis Hotels and luxury car brand Bentley, which also worked together on a suite in St. Regis’ flagship hotel in New York.
Everything was inspired by Bentley, from the curves of the headboard to the sofa that uses the same quilted leather pattern as the auto brand’s seats. There’s a Champagne chiller built into the couch and a TV in the bathroom.
A one-night stay in mid-October 2024 costs around 1,880 euros, or about $2,100, a night, according to the St. Regis Istanbul website.
Prosecutors also said in the indictment that on a 2019 trip to Turkey, Adams stayed in a different suite, called the Cosmopolitan, at the same St. Regis hotel, paying nothing instead of the visit’s $3,000 value.
Adams has said he is not guilty. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 45 years in prison.
Take a look inside the Bentley hotel suite where prosecutors say he stayed in 2017 at a major discount.
The St. Regis Istanbul’s Bentley Suite takes inspiration from the Continental series of Bentley’s famous vehicles.Modeled after the Bentley Suite at the hotel’s New York location, the 1,345-square-foot suite is packed with artful and luxurious details, such as model cars.The suite includes a separate living room with a built-in curved sofa modeled after the luxurious cabins inside Bentley cars and upholstered with the brand’s signature diamond-stitch pattern.A light sculpture inspired by one of Bentley’s car designs and the curves of the Nürburgring racetrack in Germany hangs above the bed.The curbed sofa also has a built-in Champagne bar.The marble bathroom is huge and features double vanities, a rain shower, a marble tub, and a TV.The suite is so luxurious that Forbes Travel Guide describes it as a place Jay Gatsby — the fictional wealthy-scion character from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby” — would stay at if he “were able to time travel and arrive in modern-day Istanbul.”
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