3 more City Hall officials departing after Phil Banks, including terminated Rana Abbasova: sources

NEW YORK (1010 WINS/AP) -- Three more staffers for Mayor Eric Adams are leaving their post on Monday, including Director of Protocol for International Affairs Rana Abbasova who has been terminated, sources told 1010 WINS, hours after Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks resigned from office.

A City Hall spokesperson confirmed to 1010 WINS that “Both Winnie Greco and Mohamed Bahi today tendered their resignations.”

“We thank them for their service to the city,” the spokesperson said.

Greco was the city’s Director of Asian Affairs and a prominent Adams fundraiser whose Bronx home was raided by the FBI in February, and Bahi was part of the mayor’s Community Affairs Unit. The reasons for their resignations were not immediately clear.

News of the departures came not even 24 hours after Banks resigned, another top Adams official whose home was raided. Adams confirmed the resignation of Banks, who once served as NYPD chief of department, in morning TV interviews on Monday.

“We spoke yesterday, and we spoke again this morning,” the mayor told NY1. “He stated he wants to transition to some other things in his life, and he doesn’t want this to be a constant burden on the work that we’re doing in the city.”

“I accepted his resignation,” Adams said.

The mayor said Banks had approached him around six months ago about leaving the post.

"And I said, listen, 'We’ve got a couple of things in the pipeline, can you please hang on and get them done?’ And he was willing to do that, and I appreciate him for that," Adams said.

Schools Chancellor David Banks, who is Banks’ brother, said last week that he would retire from the role on Oct. 16.

First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, who is David Banks’ wife, is also expected to resign soon, sources told 1010 WINS on Friday .

Federal prosecutors have said they are pursuing “several related investigations” in addition to the case against Adams, who was hit with a five-count indictment on Sept. 26 charging him with wire fraud, bribery, conspiracy and two counts of receiving campaign contributions from a foreign national. The indictment alleges he accepted overseas travel, campaign cash and other perks from foreign interests seeking to harness his influence.

"I was told by the U.S. Attorney's Office that my client Phil Banks is not a target of their investigation," Banks' attorney Ben Brafman said in a statement to 1010 WINS.

Adams has pleaded not guilty to the charges and rebuffed calls to resign.

Adams pushed back Monday against the suggestion that he should step down. “I am confident when the true story gets out and not a one-sided version, New Yorkers are going to see that we can stay focused and get the job done,” he said.

Multiple reports claim that Abbasova, who served as a liaison between Adams and the Turkish community, is cooperating with federal investigators and will be used as a key witness.

In recent weeks, the NYPD's commissioner, Edward Caban, and one of Adams’ closest aides, Timothy Pearson, have stepped down. Their phones were also seized by federal investigators. Caban resigned last month as authorities are said to be investigating his twin brother, James Caban, a former police sergeant who runs a nightclub security business.

Prosecutors have not said why the officials’ phones were seized. No one beside Adams has been charged with a crime.

On Thursday, Adams announced that David Banks would cease running the schools system on Oct. 16, and not at the end of the calendar year as previously announced. In a statement, David Banks said he had planned to continue serving through the end of the year “to conduct a responsible transition for our staff,” but that Adams had “decided to accelerate that timeline.”

Federal agents have seized devices from both Phil and David Banks as well as a third brother, Terence Banks.

Prosecutors are also scrutinizing whether a consulting firm run by Terence Banks, Pearl Alliance, broke the law by leveraging his family connections to help private companies secure city contracts, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose information about the investigations.

Adams has been a friend of the Banks brothers since the 1980s when the future mayor was a young police officer and their father, Philip Banks Jr., was a law enforcement mentor.

All three Banks brothers have denied wrongdoing, as has Wright, whose phone was also seized from the Hamilton Heights townhouse she shares with David Banks.

Adams appointed Philip Banks in 2022 as deputy for public safety, a role not seen in New York since the 1990s that gave him wide influence over the nation’s largest police and fire departments.

Banks had previously served as the NYPD’s highest ranking uniformed member, before resigning abruptly in 2014 after becoming ensnared in another corruption scandal that rocked City Hall.

In that case, federal investigators obtained approval to wiretap his phone amid questions about $300,000 that wound up in bank accounts belonging to him and his wife. Two businessmen were later convicted of bribing police officers and other officials. Banks was not charged but was named as an unindicted co-conspirator.

Banks said the gifts he received from the two men – including cigars, overseas travel and meals – were mistakenly omitted on disclosure forms.

In an guest essay announcing his return to public service under Adams, Banks addressed concern about the decade-old scandal, denying that he had ever traded favors as a senior NYPD official.

“I never broke the law, nor did I ever betray the public trust by abusing my authority as an NYPD official,” he wrote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.