Mayor Eric Adams has raised $732,000 in less than two months to pay legal expenses related to a federal investigation into his campaign fundraising, according to a filing filed Tuesday.
Contributors to Mr. Adams' defense fund include a host of wealthy players in business and politics, including at least four who have been described as billionaires: former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Ukrainian-British oligarch Leonard Blavatnik, and a real-life billionaire. Real estate and fertilizer tycoon Alexander Roft and cryptocurrency investor Brock Pierce.
The fund has so far spent $440,000, most of it on the law firm WilmerHale, which Mr. Adams hired to represent him in the investigation, the filing shows.
City law allows elected officials to establish defense funds to pay for expenses related to criminal or civil investigations that are unrelated to their governmental duties and cannot be paid from public funds. The funds can raise up to $5,000 per donor but are not permitted to solicit or receive contributions from anyone with contracts with the city or business before the city.
The Eric Adams Legal Defense Fund was established late last year after the FBI searched the home of Brianna Suggs, who was then a fundraiser for Mr. Adams' campaign. She made her first filing with the city's Conflict of Interest Board on Tuesday.
Mr. Adams, who unveiled his preliminary city budget on Tuesday, said support came from donors who valued his “length of service,” from his time as a transit police officer through his time as mayor.
“They said: 'We want to help,'” he said. “People knew my personality and said, ‘We want to help.’”
The four billionaires and their relatives contributed a total of $40,000 to the fund. Mr. Pierce, a former child actor who is now a cryptocurrency investor, has previously supported the city's mayor. Mr. Adams praised the cryptocurrency, and traveled on Mr. Pierce's private jet to Puerto Rico shortly after he was elected mayor. Since his campaign, Mr. Adams has also strengthened a relationship with Mr. Bloomberg, who left the City Council at the end of 2013.
Frank Carone, Mr. Adams' first chief of staff and a longtime adviser, and his relatives gave $20,000, while Lori Fensterman, the wife of Mr. Carone's former law partner, gave $5,000. The mayor himself made two donations totaling $120.
Other donors included Jennifer Rajkumar, a state Assemblywoman from Queens and a close ally of Mr. Adams, who gave $2,500; Angelo Aquista, a pulmonologist and author of diet books, and his wife, Svetlana Aquista, who gave Mr. Adams a total of $10,000; and Michael Carey, owner of Casa Cipriani, who along with two family members donated $15,000. Mr. Kyrie recently organized a party at the club that reportedly raised about $10 million for victims of the Hamas attacks on October 7, with Mr. Adams in attendance.
The bulk of the fund's expenses so far, about $397,000, have been paid to WilmerHale, where Mr. Adams' defense team includes Brendan McGuire and Boyd Johnson, two former top prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, who are conducting the investigation alongside Prosecutors. The FBI's Mr. McGuire also previously served as a key advisor to Mr. Adams at City Hall.
The fund also paid $7,500 to Pitta LLP, a law firm whose managing partner, Vito Pitta, oversees the fund. It paid about $25,000 to two companies for “examination and investigative services” and “forensic data collection.”
The City Council authorized legal defense funds in 2019 after a conflict of interest board ruled that the city’s gift restrictions prevented Mr. Adams’ predecessor, Bill de Blasio, from soliciting more than $50 per donor to pay legal bills that had racked up during state and federal investigations. In collecting money for him.
The investigation into Mayor Adams' fundraising came to light in early November. On the same day as the search of Ms. Suggs' home, FBI agents also searched the homes of Rana Abbasova, an aide in Mr. Adams's international affairs office, and Cenk Okal, a former Turkish Airlines executive who served on his transition team in New Jersey. . A few days later, agents arrested Mr. Adams after a public event and confiscated several electronic devices from the mayor.
Federal officials in Manhattan are examining whether the Turkish government conspired with Mr. Adams' campaign to funnel donations into campaign coffers, and whether Mr. Adams pressured Fire Department officials to sign on to a new high-rise Turkish consulate despite safety concerns.
Neither Mr. Adams nor anyone else connected with the investigation has been accused of any wrongdoing. The mayor and his representatives said he strictly followed the law.
On Tuesday, new fundraising disclosures for the 2025 presidential campaign also became public, the first such filings since the federal investigation into Adams' campaign came to light. They show that Mr. Adams' campaign has raised $524,800 since July — a figure far lower than in the first half of 2023, when he raised $1.3 million.
The mayor's campaign received nearly 600 donations from attorneys and real estate leaders, but only about two dozen of the donations came after the Nov. 2 raid on the fundraiser's home.
