Adams administration – FBI investigations, staff resignations, and community speculation

By Nayaba Arinde
Editor-at-Large

BREAKING NEWS
As Our Time Press closed this issue, we learned that Mayor Eric Adams, the City’s 110th Mayor, has been indicted on federal charges. This is a first for a sitting NYC Mayor.
As calls grew louder, vowing to not resign, Adams said in an emotional rebuke of the charges that he always “put people before party,” and said this has made him a target.
Asking for prayers in a televised address, Adams said, “I always knew that If I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target and a target I became. If I am charged, I am innocent and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit.”

September started off a little tricky for Mayor Eric Adams with FBI raids, searches, police-involved shootings, and multiple resignations. It gradually got worse as the month progressed.
Three weeks and news of multiple FBI raids and phone and laptop confiscation, this last week was no different.

On Monday, September 23rd, Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner Ashwin Vasan announced his end-of-year resignation.
The next Tuesday, Schools Chancellor David Banks suddenly announced that he too would be resigning in December. His replacement was immediately named as current Deputy Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos.

In a letter, Banks said he had previously notified the mayor that he was going to retire in December. But last week, he said, “I’m not distracted by this at all.”
On Tuesday, he said, “I am incredibly proud of what we have accomplished during my tenure…We have faced many challenges and made significant strides in improving the educational landscape for our students, families, and educators.”

Adams praised his longtime friend, “In less than three years, our city’s public schools have transformed from ensuring schools were safe and open coming out of the pandemic to a space that has increased our students’ reading scores, math scores, and graduation rates.”
Calling it simple “wear and tear,” Adams said a three-year turnaround on such a high-stress job is commonplace.

But also on Monday, while not an Adams hire, news broke that Mayor Bill De Blasio’s COVID Czar, Dr. Jay Varma, attended “sex” parties, not complying with the social distancing that he advised everyone to observe during the height of the coronavirus era.

City workers joined the City Council’s Common Sense Caucus, Firefighters For Choice, at a rally at City Hall.
City workers and first responders who were let go or blatantly fired for not complying with rigid Covid 19 policy requirements are now asking Adams for their jobs back and compensation whilst calling Varma a hypocrite as they were told to take the shot and wear a mask.
On Friday came the news that the Feds visited the Brooklyn home of Molly Schaeffer, the director of the city’s Office of Asylum Seeker Operations, with a subpoena linked to her communications with the Mayor’s public safety advisor, retired NYPD inspector Timothy Pearson. He is yet another Adams inner circle aid under investigation, and whose home the FBI searched on September 4th.

Adams says he is focused despite the growing calls for his resignation.
“When you fight on behalf of New York, things happen,” he declared, “but I’m going to fight for this city just as I fought for this city when I was a police officer and stood on these street corners protecting children and families.”
But…
A week after Adams appointed his longtime associate, Thomas Donlon as Interim Police Commissioner, Feds removed materials from Donlon’s Upper East Side homes.
“On Friday, September 20, federal authorities executed search warrants at my residences,” former FBI and Homeland Security official Donlon, said in a statement. “They took materials that came into my possession approximately 20 years ago and are unrelated to my work with the New York City Police Department.”

Fabien Levy, Deputy Mayor for Communications, told Our Time Press, “We expect all team members to fully comply with any law enforcement inquiry.”
Meanwhile, mere days after Police Commissioner Edward Caban resigned on September 12th his 15th months-long position amid a federal probe into possible corruption, Mayor Adams’ 13-month Chief Counsel Liza Zornberg resigned on Saturday night, 14th September.
This latest headline news incident comes on the heels of the September 4th Feds search of the homes and taking the phones and electronic devices of several top Adams administration members, including PC Caban, Police Chief David Banks, his brother Schools Chancellor Phil Banks, and his partner Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright.

While saying in a statement that she was “deeply grateful to Mayor Adams for giving me the opportunity to serve the city,” Zornberg also said, “I am tendering my resignation, effective today, as I have concluded that I can no longer effectively serve in my position.”
When former Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell resigned abruptly last June, after just 18 months in the position, reports determined that she “wasn’t allowed to do her job,” and left feeling undermined by a micromanaging Mayor.

Another day. Another Mayor Eric Adams headline.
The investigation is expanding regarding alleged illegal foreign donations from Turkey for the rumored Adams’ requested FDNY approval for the opening of the Turkish Consulate in Manhattan, despite concerns about the actual readiness.

Protests from Brooklyn to Manhattan continue to demand transparency and justice in the police shooting of an innocent bystander on the Brownsville L train two weeks ago.
As they tried to apprehend an accused fare-beater Derell Mickles, 38, NYPD officers shot two bystanders Gregory Delpeche, 49, leaving him in an induced coma, and a female rider who was grazed. Not to mention a fellow officer who was shot by what cops reluctantly called “friendly fire.”

Answering loud calls to release the body camera footage, they did so, but seeing Mickles ripping Taser prongs out of his body and then being shot multiple times did not seem to lower the volume of folks decrying the “reckless shooting at a crowded subway station.”

“The recently released body cam footage shows that Mr Mickles was in retreat when he was shot by members of the NYPD,” Attorney Keith White told Our Time Press. “The footage also shows that my client, Mr. Delpeche, was directed to another area of the train where he was subsequently shot by members of the NYPD. Our city’s leadership is failing. They are not equipping first responders with the adequate tools to deal with EDPs (emotionally disturbed persons) and they are not taking the responsibility for our city to do better.”

Arraigned from his hospital bed last week, “He was shot because he had a knife,” Mayor Adams said. “I thought those officers responded accordingly.”
Brownsville Assemblywoman Latrice Walker told Our Time Press that, after reviewing the security and bodycam footage, “I am more convinced now than ever that we need an independent investigation into the shooting. Police officials said initially that a man who failed to pay the $2.90 fare charged two uniformed officers with a knife, prompting them to fire. The videos show the man was standing still and had his hands at his side when cops fired nine shots.”

Assemblywoman Walker said that another disturbing detail to emerge from the videos is that the officers “were standing on either side of the man, firing recklessly. I’m not a firearms expert, but it appears to me that the position from which they were firing increased the likelihood that innocent people would be hit by gunfire. And, of course, we know that a man on his way to work is fighting for his life after suffering a traumatic brain injury from a police bullet. A woman was grazed and even one of the officers was shot.”

The Brownsville elected concluded that the family needs justice, the community needs transparency, the officers must be held accountable, and, “We need a review of the training given to the officers involved.”

Juggling resignations, investigations, and community speculation, Adams said his mantra is “Stay focused, no distractions, and grind.”