US v. Eric Adams

City of Maybe

By: Matthew Russell Lee

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

It was May 24, 2022 in a garden next to the SDNY Federal courthouse. Eric Adams stood at the podium and ran thought his story, his campaign and elevator pitch: "Arrested at 15, negative encounters with the police… South Jamaica, Queens, going into the classroom and finding 'Dummy' written on the back of my chair… Never learned I had dyslexia until I was in college, tempted to drop out… But I turned pain into purpose."

The question, to some, was to what purpose?

Two and a half years later, Adams was back in SDNY, this time under Federal indictment for Turkish bribes and straw donors. He proclaimed his innocence and asked to move his trial up to April Fool's Day 2025, saying anything later would hurt his chances to run for re-election.

Already, more and more candidates declared to run against him. How would the court case play out? Would it be decisive or, like those of Trump, be superseded, delayed, or even dropped? By Trump?

The book describes the legal proceedings in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, from presentment to arraignment and Classified Information Procedures Act disputes. It presents the arguments of both the prosecutors and Adams' retained defense counsel, and the cases of an FDNY bribe-taker who has already pled guilty, and staffer Mohamed Bahi.

Inner City Press is covering all these cases in SDNY, and corruption in the UN including Turkey's Mission before that. This is the story, City of Maybe, Part I.