Eric Adams’s friends keep having their phones taken away
ERIC ADAMS, New York City’s mayor, likes to talk about his devotion to the job: “The goal is stay focused, no distractions, and grind for New Yorkers.” Yet the distractions keep coming.
The list of people being investigated by federal agents includes two deputy mayors, the schools chancellor and a former police commissioner, who resigned on September 12th. The list of federal agencies poking around includes the Justice Department, the FBI and the IRS. The city’s own Department of Investigation is busy too. No indictments have come down, and no one has been accused or charged with any wrongdoing, but as federal agents raid the homes and scoop up the phones of top officials, questions are multiplying about some of the people Mr Adams has chosen to help him manage America’s biggest city. The investigations are not related to one another, but the same cannot be said of all those caught up in them.
Federal investigators have taken the phones of three brothers close to the mayor. David Banks, the schools chancellor, had his phone seized at the home he shares with his fiancée Sheena Wright, the first deputy mayor. Her phone was also taken. She says she is “co-operating fully with any investigation” and that she is “confident that I have done nothing wrong”. Mr Banks said he is co-operating with investigators and is not the target of their inquiry. His brother Philip is deputy mayor for public safety. His phone was also seized in early September. According to press reports the third brother, Terence, who runs a government-relations firm, is also under scrutiny. His lawyer says: “We have been assured by the government that Mr Banks is not a target of this investigation.” The brothers deny any wrongdoing.
Another separate investigation involves another set of brothers. Edward Caban, the former police commissioner, resigned a week after his phone was seized as part of a federal investigation, reportedly into the consulting business run by his brother James. Both men have denied any wrongdoing. James’s lawyer says his work as a liaison between the NYPD and a private company is “perfectly legal”. Edward said he was prompted to resign “for the good of the city” because the investigation was “a distraction” for the department.
It does not end there. Timothy Pearson, an adviser to the mayor, also had a phone seized this month as part of a federal probe. The mayor is under pressure to fire Mr Pearson, who allegedly assaulted security guards at a migrant shelter and also faces sexual-harassment lawsuits. Mr Pearson’s lawyer has said he denies the allegations in all the suits. The FBI searched the home of another senior staffer in February. Last year the FBI looked into donations made to Mr Adams’s 2021 mayoral campaign. At issue was whether any campaign money came from foreign donors, which would be illegal. His top campaign fund-raiser later resigned, and the investigation appears to be continuing.
Mr Adams’s own mobile devices were seized by federal agents in November 2023. The mayor has repeatedly said he has done nothing wrong. When the police commissioner resigned, Mr Adams told New Yorkers he was “as surprised as you to learn of these inquiries”. He went on to say, “I spent more than 20 years in law enforcement, and so, every member of the administration knows my expectations that we must follow the law.”
But Mr Adams also brags about his loyalty to his team and says he himself is “perfectly imperfect”. His friendships with the Banks and Caban families go back decades. Mr Adams worked with the fathers of both sets of brothers when he was a police officer, and Mr Pearson was once his own commanding officer. “City government is a family affair”, says John Kaehny of Reinvent Albany, a good-government group. “The mayor’s responsibilities are to the people who elected him, not the people he has employed the longest,” says Susan Lerner of Common Cause, a government watchdog. That is not always the impression Mr Adams has given. ■
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