Prosecutors Warn of More Charges and Defendants in Adams Graft Case

Eric Adams, the New York City mayor, appeared before Judge Dale E. Ho as he fights off federal charges that he accepted luxury travel in exchange for favors.

Less than a week after Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty to charges of bribery and fraud, federal prosecutors told a judge that they might bring additional charges against him and that charges against other people were likely.

“There are several related investigations here,” Hagan Cordell Scotten, a prosecutor with the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, said during a hearing in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday. Prosecutors said that the case had been complicated by their inability to unlock Mr. Adams’s cellphone, because he had said he could not remember the recently changed password.

The nearly 90-minute hearing was the latest step in the case against Mr. Adams, the first sitting mayor in modern New York City history to be indicted. Last week, prosecutors unsealed a five-count indictment that accuses him of bribery conspiracy, fraud and soliciting illegal campaign donations. Mr. Adams, 64, has denied the allegations.

At an event in Brooklyn hours after the hearing, the mayor said he was not worried about additional charges.

“They said maybe, probably. This is all part of the process,” Mr. Adams said. “My attorney will handle it.”

The mayor, a former Brooklyn borough president, state senator and police captain, is accused of accepting free and discounted luxury travel for years and of pressuring the Fire Department to sign off on the opening of a new high-rise Turkish Consulate building in Midtown Manhattan.

The judge, Dale E. Ho, said at the Wednesday hearing that he would set a trial date soon.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Brooklyn appear to be conducting at least four separate inquiries that have ensnared people from Mr. Adams’s orbit. Several members of his circle have had their phones seized, and City Hall has seen several top aides resign.

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Four federal corruption inquiries have reached into the world of Mayor Eric Adams of New York. Here is a closer look at the charges against Mr. Adams and how people with ties to him are related to the inquiries.

Mr. Adams has said he will not step down, even as calls for him to quit have grown.

But the case has destabilized his administration. The mayor has been forced to focus on the city’s day-to-day operations as senior administrators have announced their resignations, including the police commissioner and schools chancellor, and Mr. Adams must also participate in his legal defense.

On Wednesday, Mr. Adams rushed from the hearing at the Downtown Manhattan courthouse to a news conference with the Police Department to discuss security for the High Holy Days and the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. Afterward, Mr. Adams held a town hall at a club for older New Yorkers in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

In a room of almost all Black residents, the mayor, who had removed his suit jacket, recited a list of accomplishments, focusing on reduced crime in the subways and managing the influx of more than 200,000 migrants.

Mr. Adams called himself an “outer-borough” mayor and a “working-class, blue-collar mayor” who doesn’t “fit what other people feel the mayor should be.”

Then he declared his innocence.

“I know my life,” he said. “I did nothing wrong, and it will be proven that I did nothing wrong. I’m strong on that ground.”

Carrie Roberson, a retired teacher at the event, said that federal authorities were targeting the Adams administration because the mayor had spoken out on behalf of Black people.

“I hope the F.B.I. is wrong. I hope that he can continue,” Ms. Roberson said. “But when the F.B.I. comes after you, they come loaded.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove the mayor, has not done so. On Wednesday, she said the departure this week of Timothy Pearson, one of Mr. Adams’s closest aides and confidants, was “a good first step” for the mayor in regaining the confidence of New Yorkers.

Prosecutors say that the mayor sold them out, taking benefits worth more than $100,000 over nearly a decade, as well as illegal campaign contributions.

On Wednesday, Mr. Adams sat in federal court at the defense table next to one of his lawyers, Alex Spiro, in a dark blue suit, a blue tie and a white shirt. Mr. Adams looked straight ahead for most of the hearing as the judge set a schedule for motions and hearings. Four federal prosecutors sat across the aisle.

Mr. Spiro said he wanted any trial finished by March, before the Democratic primary for mayor in June, in which his client faces four challengers.

Mr. Spiro said the trial’s timing would decide whether Mr. Adams got to “meet with members of the community as an innocent man versus with this hanging over his head.” The mayor is already facing four challengers and others, like former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, may also enter the primary.

Mr. Scotten, the prosecutor, said that the charges stemmed from a long-running conspiracy by Mr. Adams that he called a “sacrifice of his duty.” The investigation, Mr. Scotten told the judge, began in summer 2021, before Mr. Adams became mayor.

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Mr. Scotten said the government had a lot of evidence that it must share with the defense before trial. The materials include bank, credit card and telephone records and communications, some of which had to be translated from Turkish.

Mr. Scotten said that there had been a “significant issue” of interference, citing a witness who he said had received a message from Mr. Adams instructing the person to lie to the F.B.I.

Prosecutors also said that they were still unable to get access to Mr. Adams’s phone, which they seized last year. Mr. Adams said at the time that he couldn’t remember the password, because he had recently changed it.

Mr. Spiro said that defense lawyers would provide a copy of the phone’s contents to prosecutors, and said that they would find nothing.

Since Mr. Adams’s arraignment on Friday, his lawyers have filed several motions before Judge Ho. On Monday, they asked the court to dismiss a bribery charge. On Tuesday, they accused federal prosecutors of leaking information about the investigation that led to the mayor’s indictment and asked the judge to hold a hearing and issue sanctions against them.

Pressing for a quick trial date, Mr. Spiro said most of the government’s case was based on the bribery charge, which “we don’t expect to survive.”

“We have every right, the public has every right, to a speedy trial here,” Mr. Spiro argued to the judge, adding: “We don’t want this case dragging.”

Grace Ashford contributed reporting.