A former aide to Mayor Eric Adams of New York was sentenced to one year of home confinement on Tuesday in a federal case that was part of a swirl of corruption investigations surrounding City Hall.
The punishment of the aide, Mohamed Bahi, who had been the mayor’s chief liaison to the Muslim community, came months after the Trump administration took the extraordinary step of abandoning the prosecution of Mr. Adams himself over the objections of prosecutors.
Mr. Adams had been indicted on five counts, including bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. But the Trump Justice Department ordered the case dropped to allow the mayor to help advance the president’s immigration agenda. Still, the case against Mr. Bahi continued.
On Tuesday, Judge Dale E. Ho, who also presided over the Adams case and criticized the Trump administration’s handling of it, noted the perception that Mr. Bahi had been “left here holding the bag.”
The judge spoke of “the notable absence of the person at the apex of the pyramid.”
Mr. Bahi was arrested last year and charged with instructing witnesses to lie to F.B.I. agents conducting an investigation into the mayor’s campaign donations. His arrest happened less than two weeks after that investigation led to the mayor’s indictment.
In August, Mr. Bahi pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. On Tuesday, he was sentenced to three years of probation in addition to the home confinement. He was also ordered to pay $32,000 in restitution.
Before issuing the sentence at the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, Judge Ho asked Robert Sobelman, a prosecutor with the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, to explain how the court should weigh the dismissal of Mr. Adams’s case when sentencing a small player in the scheme. Some of Mr. Bahi’s supporters applauded.
“The court should focus on Mr. Bahi’s case,” Mr. Sobelman responded. “The conduct Mr. Bahi engaged in personally.”
Mr. Bahi told Judge Ho that he accepted full responsibility for his role in the fraud.
“I know integrity of an election is one of the most sacred rights, and I violated it,” he told the packed courtroom, including dozens of supporters in the gallery.
Mr. Bahi is one of several people in the mayor’s orbit who were swept up in federal investigations into Mr. Adams and his dealings. The numerous investigations, by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Brooklyn, engulfed City Hall as a cascade of Mr. Adams’s closest allies and aides resigned last year.
This year, a Turkish American businessman, Erden Arkan, was sentenced to one year of probation for conspiracy to commit wire fraud after making illegal donations to Mr. Adams’s campaign.
In Mr. Bahi’s case, prosecutors said that he had connected the mayor with an Uzbek businessman, Tolib Mansurov, who they said made illegal donations to Mr. Adams’s campaign. In return, Mr. Mansurov received help from the mayor in resolving his construction company’s problems with the city’s Buildings Department, according to prosecutors. No charges against Mr. Mansurov, who cooperated with the investigation, have been made public.
In June 2024, Mr. Mansurov called Mr. Bahi to say that the F.B.I. had searched his home, according to prosecutors. That afternoon, Mr. Bahi went to Mr. Mansurov’s office and told him he had spoken with Mr. Adams. The businessman told Mr. Bahi that he had lied to the federal agents about making donations in the names of four employees, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Mr. Bahi urged Mr. Mansurov and the employees to keep lying, and he photographed the grand jury subpoenas that the agents had given them.
During his plea hearing in August, Mr. Bahi told Judge Ho that he knew that his actions were wrong.
A memorandum filed by Mr. Bahi’s lawyer, Derek Adams, asked that Judge Ho impose a sentence of one year of probation. The memo pointed to the “exemplary life” he said his client had led, “giving back to his community, to other communities and to strangers alike.”
Mr. Bahi agreed to pay restitution to the New York City Campaign Finance Board as part of his plea agreement, according to the memorandum, “even though his current financial condition is strained and, further, not a dollar of this money was ever received by Bahi.”
Outside the courtroom, Mr. Bahi said he was “happy that the so-called journey is over.”
“I’m happy that I get to go home to my kids,” he told reporters.
William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state courts.
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