Eric Adams’ shady inner circle comes back to bite him

NEW YORK — An unindicted co-conspirator, an accused sexual harasser and a high-ranking cop alleged to have beaten a female subordinate were among Mayor Eric Adams’ most questionable appointees, until this week.

The forced resignation of New York City’s police commissioner, following a federal raid of his home, has intensified concerns about the mayor's staffing decisions.

NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban’s departure — the first high-profile one since the feds seized phones from members of Adams’ inner circle last week — is the latest chapter in a saga that dates back even before January 2022 when Adams, freshly off his election victory, began filling his administration with people whose checkered pasts were almost certain to invite scrutiny.

When assembling his administration, Adams named Phil Banks deputy mayor of public safety, even though the former NYPD chief was caught a decade ago accepting gifts from people ultimately convicted of bribery.

Adams placed his old police boss and personal friend Tim Pearson in a powerful, nebulous adviser role and gave him control over a small new municipal office with unchecked power. Pearson is now facing four sexual harassment lawsuits, and one of his accusers alleged in court papers his behavior had been common knowledge for years .

The city “knew about” Pearson’s “long history of sexual misconduct … but ignored his history and hired him anyway,” one of the complaints reads. Pearson’s lawyer has denied all the allegations.

Now both Banks and Pearson have also had their phones seized by federal agents, alongside Caban.

The probes have raised new questions about the mayor’s judgment, and whether his loyalty to troubled aides has become an insurmountable political liability. Nearly every Democrat challenging him in his reelection primary next year is zeroing in on his perceived ethical lapses.

“Far be it for me to tell Eric Adams who to hire and fire. But it’s clear to me that he didn’t understand the most important part of being mayor,” Scott Stringer, the former city comptroller who is expected to run against Adams next year, said in an interview with POLITICO. “He made poor choices, and it’s come back to hurt him.”

The list goes on.

Jeffrey Maddrey, whom the mayor named chief of the NYPD, was accused of punching a fellow cop he’d coerced into a sexual relationship. A judge threw out the case, but he was docked 45 vacation days in an internal trial.

Adams’ former chief of staff is entangled in litigation over past business interests and his ex-buildings commissioner resigned amid an investigation that led to an indictment on bribery charges . He has pleaded not guilty.

In his personal life, Adams is close friends with twin brothers who pleaded guilty a decade ago to financial crimes . A pastor who has described Adams as a mentor was recently sentenced to nine years in jail for stealing a parishoner’s mother’s retirement savings.

Adams appointed an anti-gay Bronx clergyman as a faith adviser, over protests from LGBTQ+ groups. And one of his community liaisons is under federal investigation involving a visit to China she made with Adams.

Many of Adams’ picks to help lead the city’s sprawling government have been unimpeachable. But the list of Adams associates enmeshed in scandal continues to grow.

“It just raises questions to me as to why our mayor feels so incredibly comfortable surrounding himself with a myriad of unsavory characters,” said Christina Greer, a close watcher of city politics as a Fordham University political science professor and co-host of the FAQ NYC podcast.

“You’ve got people accused of punching people in the face, of sexual inappropriateness,” she added. “The list of grievances is long and getting longer, so why would you invite that into your inner circle?”

Adams prides himself on giving people second chances , and says his door is open to anybody . That comes from his own nontraditional political rise — from a dyslexic Black kid from Queens who got arrested and beaten by cops, to a police officer who courted controversy, to an elected official who would eventually mayor.

“Yes, I’m going to talk with people who have stumbled and fell,” Adams said in 2022. “Because I’m perfectly imperfect , and this is a city made up of perfectly imperfect people.”

The people Adams surrounds himself with — both personally and professionally — have earned him criticism going back three decades, to the dawn of his political career.

Adams’ first run for office, a 1994 challenge to a congressional incumbent, was doomed in part by his alliance with Louis Farrakhan , the antisemitic Nation of Islam leader. Soon after, Adams was investigated as a cop for working security for boxer Mike Tyson , who was fresh out of prison after a rape conviction.

After winning a seat in the state Senate, Adams became a friend and the top defender of the so-called four amigos , Democrats who caused chaos in the chamber by defecting from their party. Three of the amigos have since served prison time, for unrelated crimes. The fourth, Rubén Díaz Sr., has become a fierce ally of former President Donald Trump.

Later, Adams got involved in the bidding process for a slot machine contract with fellow state Sens. John Sampson and Malcolm Smith. The arrangement fell apart , and Adams got dinged for “exceedingly poor judgment” in an ethics report. Sampson and Smith both later went to prison for unrelated crimes.

As mayor, Adams’ plan to appoint his own brother Bernard to a well-paid NYPD gig leading his security team raised eyebrows. Adams only asked for ethics guidance after the fact, an internal watchdog reduced his title, and dropped Bernard’s salary to $1. He left after a year.

Adams also tapped nonprofit executive Sheena Wright to be a deputy mayor, a decade after she’d been arrested twice in a day over a domestic dispute. Her friend David Banks called his brother, NYPD bigwig Phil Banks to intervene, and Wright was let out and the charges were dropped.

Wright and David Banks, Adams’ schools chancellor, now live together. They were both among the top appointees who had their phones seized by federal investigators last week — maybe the latest example of Adams’ appointment decisions coming back to bite him.

Adams’ loyalty does have its limits. He cut ties with the pastor he mentored, kept his distance as one of the four amigo state senators, Hiram Monserrate, has attempted political comebacks, and now, pushed out Caban.

“There comes a time when we have to look and see: Is our loyalty to the detriment of the people of New York? And if that point is reached, then you need to make hard judgment calls,” said state Sen. James Sanders, a southeast Queens Democrat who endorsed Adams for mayor in 2021.

“I think that when the mayor comes out of this situation,” Sanders added on the latest raids, “he will have learned many valuable lessons.”