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DealBook|The Big Apple Business View on Eric Adams
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/27/business/dealbook/new-york-business-eric-adams.html
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The fallout from the Adams case
Over the past 48 hours, the biggest spectacle for New Yorkers hasn’t been the presidential race, but rather the criminal case against Mayor Eric Adams. He was indicted Thursday on five counts, including fraud, bribery and soliciting illegal campaign donations from abroad for years.
Adams pledged to stay in office and fight the charges. But many in the New York business community are waiting to see how the drama will play out — and weighing who might come next.
Prosecutors accused Adams of taking favors from Turkish individuals for years, starting when he was the Brooklyn borough president and continuing through to his term as mayor, in exchange for helping Turkish officials with issues they faced in the city.
Some of the details revealed in the indictment are straight out of a TV police procedural. Here’s one exchange, between Rana Abbasova, an Adams aide, and Cenk Ocal, a former manager of the Turkish Airlines office in New York, about a last-minute flight for Adams to Istanbul:
Ocal: “I am going to charge $50.”
Abbasova: “No.”
Ocal: “That would work, wouldn’t it?”
Abbasova: “No, dear. $50? What? Quote a proper price.”
Ocal: “How much should I charge? :)”
Abbasova: “His every step is being watched right now. $1,000 or so. Let it be somewhat real.”
Publicly, business leaders are mostly in a holding pattern. “We must allow the legal process to take its course, including a full assessment of a substantive response from the mayor to the charges against him,” Kathryn Wylde, the C.E.O. of the Partnership for New York City, an influential business trade group, said on Thursday.
One prominent figure who changed his tune on Adams was Bill Ackman, who on Wednesday questioned why the mayor was being prosecuted. After the indictment was unveiled, the billionaire financier posted on X, “Sadly for NYC and for the Mayor, the complaint against @ericadamsfornyc is devastating and credible.”
Privately, executives suggest that Adams could stay put for now. The local economy is holding up, despite ongoing concerns about homelessness, crime and other quality-of-life issues. Some suggested that so long as the state’s top Democratic leaders don’t pressure him to go, the mayor has time to fight.
