New York City Mayor Eric Adams Charged With Federal Crimes: NYT

Federal prosecutors indicted New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday, The New York Times reports, casting doubt on the moderate Democrat’s future as chief executive of the country’s largest city.

The indictment is still sealed so the nature of the charges is not yet known, according to the Times.

Regardless, the charges represent a remarkable turn of fortune for Adams, a former New York Police Department captain whose victorious public safety-focused campaign earned him national recognition as a sign of shifting current within his party. Adams, the city’s second Black mayor, went so far as to describe himself as the “future of the Democratic Party.”

He can now claim a different sort of distinction: The first New York City mayor to be indicted.

As both a candidate and an elected official, Adams is perhaps best known as a larger-than-life cheerleader for the Big Apple ― a nightlife aficionado who took to using Alicia Keys’ “New York” as his intro music at public appearances.

But Adams’ roots in Brooklyn’s party patronage system and facility with transactional, interest-group politicking ― the kind that often has a seedy underside — played as much a role in his election as his trademark “swagger.”

He took with him to City Hall his old machine-style habits, testing the bounds of ethics laws, hiring friends with shady pasts and allegedly presiding over a culture of roguish behavior.

The U.S. Department of Justice had been investigating whether Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign colluded with the Turkish government to funnel him illegal foreign donations. The probe came into public view in November , when federal agents first seized the electronic devices of an Adams campaign aide in charge of fundraising, and then Adams’ own