Accusation: Adams and associates secretly tried to cover up corruption with Turkey

According to the indictment, Mayor Eric Adams and his staff took underhanded steps to cover up his corruption in Turkey, even as federal authorities closed in on him.

One employee – who appears to be former City Hall aide Rana Abbasova, who was placed on administrative leave for asking staff to delete messages – “excused herself to go to the bathroom,” court documents say, during an interview with investigators in November 2023.

In the toilet, Abbasova “deleted the encrypted messaging applications she had used to communicate with Adams,” a Turkish official, an airline executive and promoter who, according to the documents, had provided the mayor with unspecified benefits, among other things.

According to the indictment, Adams also apparently resorted to trickery when federal authorities first raided his allies in November 2023 and seized his electronic devices.

When Adams handed over his personal cell phone to authorities after being summoned, investigators found that it was locked and required a password to open it.

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The mayor claimed he had changed his password the day before to prevent his staff from accidentally or intentionally deleting the phone's contents because “according to Adams, he wanted to preserve the contents of his phone for the investigation,” the indictment states.

“But, Adams further claimed, he had forgotten the password he had just set and therefore could not provide the FBI with a password to unlock the phone,” court documents state.