Mayor Eric Adams of New York on Tuesday criticized federal authorities who brought a corruption case against him, and said that documents made it public last week that they were ‘plotting’ to embarrass him.
Mr Adams, who was confronted with federal bribery and fraud – before the Ministry of President Trump left the case against him earlier this year, created the investigation and in particular the suggestion that federal agents had considered his electronic devices on the New York City Marathon 2023 finish line.
“I was the target for humiliation,” he said during this weekly press conference in the town hall, and added: “They wanted to take my phones at the damn marathon.”
Mr Adams’s comments on Tuesday were his most extensive, and pointed out, because some 1,700 pages with documents from his business were released on FridayUnveiling new details about the corruption research that had focused on the mayor. They showed that the federal authorities went through the investigation and obtained a new order in February to seek evidence from fraud and bribery of the federal program by the campaigns of Mr Adams. Then the Trump government intervened to end it.
Mr. Adams was sued In September by federal prosecutors in Manhattan Five countsIncluding bribery, wire fraud and requests from illegal foreign donations.
In February, the acting official of the Ministry of Justice, Emil Bove III, directed The Interim -Marican lawyer in Manhattan to seek the dismissal of the case, with the argument that the indictment disrupted with the mayor’s assets to collaborate with Mr Trump’s deportation agenda.
Judge Dale E. Ho has admitted the government’s request to reject the charges and said that he did this because the privilege of pursuing a case or dropping it is rested by prosecutors. He wrote that his decision was not a reflection of the merit of the case against Mr Adams.
The non -closed data also shed light on a claim that Mr Adams has submitted to the federal authorities about forgetting the password for his primary mobile phone, so that the FBI did not open it after obtaining an order to look for it. The mayor’s lawyers told the authorities that he has changed it to prevent assistants from having access to it and forget the new password, according to the records.
But a sworn explanation from an FBI agent who was included in the documents said it seemed that Mr Adams “had hidden that device from law enforcement when he was searched, and then made false statements, both directly and via Council,” to hinder researchers to open it and revise their content.
On Tuesday, Mr Adams said that he could not remember the password for his phone because he has dyslexia, a learning disease that he has often spoken.
“Hey, people, I’m dyslexic,” he said. “I have forgotten figures. That is a by -product.”
The FBI, who obtained Warrants to follow the location of Mr Adams with the help of data from mobile phones, discovered that he had used seven different telephone numbers since the research began in August 2021, according to the files. He often wore different devices.
The use of Mr Adams of so many telephones led the FBI to ask permission to use a “cell site simulator” to discover other devices near Mr Adams, it was known to be used.
In one FBI statement, an agent wrote that “people involved in criminal activities often use multiple mobile phones to reduce the chances that the discovery or seizure of the law enforcement of one telephone will reveal or disrupt their illegal activities.”
When Mr Adams was asked on Saturday why he had so many telephones, he told reporters that he had a work telephone, a personal phone and a campaign telephone and that when federal officials took his phones, he had to get new.
“Many New Yorkers have different telephones,” said Mr Adams.
Instead of trying to grab his devices on the marathon on November 5, 2023, the FBI approached him the next evening after an event near Washington Square Park. Agents grabbed two or three iPhones and an iPad from the mayor, but he did not wear his personal phone, which the FBI called ‘the Target Notification’ according to the Warrant files.
The next day Mr Adams’s lawyers turned that phone, a Gray Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max that Mr Adams said he had locked himself up, and another phone, according to the documents of the investigation.
In a sworn explanation that an order sought to seek Gracie Mansion, an FBI agent wrote that location data for one of the mayor of the mayor indicated that he “regularly spends the overnight times of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in his official residence of Gracie Mansion in Manhattan in Manhattan and” does this on other days. “That raised questions about where Mr Adams is sleeping for the rest of the week (when Mr. Adams ran for mayor in 2021, invited reporters in a house that he owns in Brooklyn To try to suppress speculation that he actually lived in Fort Lee, NJ)
The officers carried out the search for Gracie Mansion in the early morning hours of Thursday, September 26, 2024, the same day that Mr Adams’s indictment was not closed.
More electronic devices were seized: two more iPhones, an iPad with a “NYC Mayor’s Office” sticker and an Iridium satellite telephone that was in a protected case on the bedside table next to Mr Adams bed.
On Tuesday, Mr Adams also discussed his Visit Mr. Trump in the White House. The mayor said he had discussed infrastructure and other important issues with the president. Mr. Trump later told reporters that they had “almost nothing” discussed and that Mr Adams “had come to thank me”.
The mayor said he did not thank Mr Trump for the push of his administration to drop the corruption case against him, but for the comments of Mr. Trump last October that that said that Mr Adams’s case was unfair and political.
“Why wouldn’t I thank?” Said Mr Adams. “While I went through the most devastating experience that I had as a human being, this person I didn’t know said,” it’s wrong what they are doing with the mayor of the city of New York. “The first thing I did when I walked in his office is saying” Thank you. “
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