An FBI spokesperson confirmed that agents carried out early-morning raids at two Bronx addresses, which records show are owned by Winnie Greco, a former fundraiser to Adams who now serves as a special advisor of Asian Affairs. Agents could be seen taking boxes of material away and loading them into an SUV.

The purpose of the investigation was not immediately clear, though it appears to be related to questions as to whether she asked for donations in exchange for access to official mayoral events, according to a report by The City.

Crown Heights Nov 2, 2023

FBI searches Crown Heights home of chief Eric Adams fundraiser: Sources

Eric Adams Nov 10, 2023

Mayor Eric Adams' phones, iPad seized by FBI amid campaign fundraising investigation

It comes as Adams and several members of his inner circle are facing federal scrutiny by Manhattan prosecutors related political fundraising during his 2021 campaign.

A person with knowledge of the investigation said the investigation was being overseen by the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn and was separate from the criminal inquiry being conducted by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

Neighbors of Greco’s said federal agents began searching the two homes, which are on the same block of Gillespie Avenue in the Pelham Bay neighborhood, at around 6:00 a.m. and remained in the area for several hours.

Greco was placed on administrative leave Thursday, according to a City Hall spokesperson. A prolific fundraiser, she had worked closely with Adams for over a decade, serving as his conduit to the city’s Asian-American communities.

In November, the city’s Department of Investigation opened a probe into her conduct following a news report that raised questions about her political fundraising and whether she used her position in the administration to obtain personal benefits.

According to that report, published by the local news outlet The City, Greco demanded that a city employee complete free renovations on her home when he was supposed to be working. The report appears to have led to DOI investigation as well as an FBI criminal investigation.

Greco is at least the third aide to Adams whose home has targeted by federal agents. In November, the FBI raided the home of Brianna Suggs, a top fundraiser for Adams, and Rana Abbasova, who worked in the mayor’s international affairs office. Four days later, agents quietly seized the mayor’s cellphones and an iPad as he was leaving an event in Manhattan.

That investigation, which is being led by Manhattan prosecutors, is believed to be focused on whether the Adams campaign conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal campaign contributions from foreign sources, funneled through straw donors, according to a warrant reported on by The New York Times.

Adams has repeatedly deflected questions about the investigation while stressing that he has not officially been accused of wrongdoing.

“Our administration will always follow the law, and we always expect all our employees to adhere to the strictest ethical guidelines,” a spokesperson for the mayor said in a statement Thursday. “As we have repeatedly said, we don’t comment on matters that are under review, but will fully cooperate with any review underway.”

There was no immediate response to a voicemail seeking comment left at a phone number listed as Greco’s.

Last October, Mayor Eric Adams announced he’d hired ElevenLabs, a London artificial intelligence start-up, to create a series of robocalls that made it seem like Adams could speak several foreign languages. The idea, the mayor said, was to enable him to speak directly to people in their native languages about city services and opportunities.

“People stop me on the street all the time, and say, ‘I didn’t know you speak Mandarin,’” Adams said at the time.

Three months later, ElevenLabs is in the news again — this time, for an alleged connection to a political dirty trick.

artificial intelligence Jan 29

AI companies will need to start reporting their safety tests to the US government

Eric Adams Oct 17, 2023

Can Mayor Adams speak Mandarin? No, but AI can help him robocall in different languages

Researchers at a rival artificial intelligence firm say they’ve all but confirmed the ElevenLabs AI platform was used by someone earlier this month to create the now infamous deepfake robocall designed to trick New Hampshire citizens into thinking President Biden wanted them to stay home instead of voting in the state’s primary election.

According to Pindrop, a company that specializes in voice security, the firm’s “deepfake detection engine found, with a 99% likelihood, that this deepfake is created using ElevenLabs or a TTS (Text To Speech) system using similar components.”

In a blog post discussing the methodology used to investigate the Biden deepfake, Vijay Balasubramaniyan, Pindrop’s Co-Founder, said detecting synthetic speech in the realm of political messaging is going to become increasingly important so voters can stay informed. He noted that it was not ElevenLabs itself, but a user of the platform who likely created the phony Biden recording.

“Even though the attackers used ElevenLabs this time, it is likely to be a different Generative AI system in future attacks,” Balasubramaniyan wrote. “Hence it is imperative that there are enough safeguards available in these tools to prevent nefarious use.”

The I-Team reached out multiple times to ElevenLabs, but the company has not yet responded. 

On Feb. 6, the New Hampshire Attorney General announced its Election Law Unit had determined the source of the Biden deepfake robocall was a Texas company called Life Corporation and its principle, Walter Monk. Neither Monk nor a representative for Life Corporation immediately responded to the I-Team’s requests for comment.

The Attorney General’s news release did not include a conclusion about what voice cloning platform was used to create the deepfake.

“The Election Law Unit is also aware of media reports that the recorded message was likely made using software from ElevenLabs,” the statement read.  “At this time the Unit is continuing to investigate and cannot confirm whether that reporting is accurate.”

After Mayor Adams announced his use of ElevenLabs to produce those foreign language robocalls, some AI watchdogs criticized City Hall, saying the use of voice cloning by public officials should involve more oversight. Julia Stoyanovich, an Associate Professor of Computer Science at NYU who focuses on the ethics of machine learning, said AI-generated government messages should always come with bold disclosures that they are not real human voices.

“I don’t think we should be releasing – and politicians in particular, and elected officials like our Mayor – should be releasing machine generated content without an explicit statement that the content is machine generated,” Stoyanovich said. 

For two months, the I-Team has been requesting Mayor Adams provide copies of all the AI-generated robocalls featuring him speaking foreign languages.  Despite the audio having been paid for with public money, City Hall has failed to share all except the Spanish version.

Mayor Adams did not respond to specific questions about why the recordings are being withheld from the public, though City Hall argued his use of voice cloning has been fully transparent because Adams proactively mentioned the foreign language robocalls in front of journalists last October when he announced an “action plan” for responsible AI use in NYC government. The document does not take a position on whether those policies should include mandatory disclosure when government messages are produced with the help of machine learning.

That action plan calls for written policies on government use of AI to be published sometime in 2025. The document does not take a position on whether those policies should include mandatory disclosure when government messages are produced with the help of machine learning.

Several bills are pending in the New York and New Jersey state legislatures that would put guardrails on the use of AI, including one in Albany that would amend the election law to require disclosure when “synthetic media” is used in political communication.  Another bill in Trenton would extend the crime of identity theft to fraudulent impersonation using AI or deepfake technology.

Some, including many entrepreneurs inside the artificial intelligence industry, say increased oversight and regulation needs to come soon in order to preserve trust in the authenticity of mediated messages.

“We do need to act with regulation and some sort of governance,” said Zohaib Ahmed, the founder of Resemble AI, a Canadian company that specializes in voice cloning.

Ahmed said his firm has introduced an “invisible watermark” that can be embedded in audio files so it can always be traced back to the source.  He predicted watermarking and deepfake detection will quickly become industry standards, so people can trust what they’re hearing has been authorized by the person whose voice is being replicated.

“We understand the implications of our technology and we want to make it a point that we’re deploying it safely,” Ahmed said.

Correction (Feb. 1, 2024, 9:48 a.m.): An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Julia Stoyanovich.

Should police have to report any time they stop a person on the street?

In New York, the question has divided local government as the City Council voted to pass a bill, over the objections of Mayor Eric Adams, that would require officers to document basic information. The issue was thrust into the national spotlight in recent days when NYPD officers pulled over a Black council member without giving him a reason.

The bill, dubbed the How Many Stops Act, was voted on in a final council vote Tuesday afternoon, with the override passing 42-9. Mayor Adams had vetoed the legislation earlier this month, but the council needed 34 votes in favor to override the veto, which was easily reached. Supporters erupted in cheers afterward.

“The Council answered decades-long calls from communities most impacted by police stops and the harmful legacy of stop-and-frisk, to deliver much-needed transparency to policing and advance true public safety for New Yorkers,” said Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. “By collecting and disclosing data on investigative stops, the How Many Stops Act will bring forth a fuller picture of these encounters, fostering accountability and trust between the police and the communities they serve.”

She said earlier in the day that “there should not be resistance to telling people who is being stopped in this city and why.”

The law gives police reform advocates a major win in requiring the nation’s largest police department and its 36,000 officers to document all investigative encounters in a city that once had officers routinely stop and frisk huge numbers of men for weapons — a strategy that took a heavy toll on communities of color.

In a statement following the vote, Mayor Adams said that the vote “may end up undermining” the city’s steps to bring crime down, arguing it would bury police under unnecessary paperwork over casual encounters — like asking someone on the street if they saw someone running if they are lost.

“These bills will make New Yorkers less safe on the streets, while police officers are forced to fill out additional paperwork rather than focus on helping New Yorkers and strengthening community bonds,” Adams said in the statement. “Additionally, it will make staff in our jails and those in our custody less safe by impairing our ability to hold those who commit violent acts accountable.”

Under the proposal, officers will have to record details on the apparent race, gender and ages of people they stop in low-level encounters where police are asking for information from someone who isn’t necessarily suspected of a crime.

Officers also will have to report the reason for the interaction and the circumstances that led to stopping a particular person. The data would then be posted on the police department’s website.

“All the How Many Stops Act does is it says whenever the NYPD is engaged in an official investigative encounter, they document it,” said Michael Sisitzky of the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

But Adams, a Democrat, has said the reporting requirements for low-level stops would be too time-consuming for officers, forcing them to fill out forms every time they speak to a person rather than focusing on solving a crime.

“When you talk about one individual incident, no, that doesn’t take a long time. But when it’s the accumulative of many different incidents in times it impacts that officer doing his job. It drives up overtime. It becomes duplicative,” Adams, a former NYPD captain, said Monday during an interview on WNYC radio.

Adams said that he shares “the City Council’s goal of increasing transparency in government…But the answer is not to compromise public safety or justice for the victims of violence.”

The mayor also didn’t think city council intended for the low-level interactions to be documented — implying councilmembers did not understand their own bill, despite his efforts to educate them. He said he had hoped changes could be made to the bill.

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams, who sponsored the bill, disputes the mayor’s characterization. He says the reporting could be done in less than a minute on an officer’s phone and that it would inform the public about how officers are policing the city.

“These votes are a victory for public safety in our city, no matter what the mayor would like New Yorkers to believe,” said Williams. “The How Many Stops Act will help us get basic information on how policing practices are in effect on our streets, and craft public safety policy moving forward.”

Republicans, by far the minority on the council, raised their own objections Tuesday, with some suggesting the bill only served to further racial divisions in a city that’s seen its share of otherwise innocuous police stops turn deadly.

“Please don’t make this a racial issue. It isn’t,” Council Member Vickie Paladino, a Queens Republican who is white, said after a number of her council peers spoke strongly in favor of the bill, with a number even speaking in Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin and Haitian Creole.

In response to the council’s override, Police Benevolent Association President said officers will comply with the new law “despite the increased workload and the NYPD’s critically low staffing levels.” Hendry’s statement also said that “ultimately, it will be City Council members – not PBA members – who must answer for rising 911 response times and diminished police presence in our neighborhoods.”

Others noted that this coming Sunday marks the 25th anniversary of when a young, unarmed Black immigrant named Amadou Diallo was shot dozens of times by NYPD officers in the Bronx.

“We didn’t make this a race thing,” Riley said. “This is a race thing.”

Police stops in New York have long been the subject of scrutiny and intense debate.

In 2013, a federal judge ruled that the NYPD had violated the civil rights of Black and Latino residents with its use of the tactic known as “stop and frisk,” which was part of an effort to get guns and drugs off the street by frequently stopping and searching people on the street. Since then, the department has reported a large decline in such stops, though an ACLU report found people of color were still the targets of the vast majority of stop-and-frisks in 2022.

After the council first approved the How Many Stops Act in December, Adams and the NYPD went on the offensive to publicly campaign against it. On Friday night, the mayor hosted a police ride-along for council members in an effort to sway some lawmakers from voting to override his veto.

But the event was overshadowed earlier that evening when an officer pulled over Council Member Yusef Salaam, an exonerated member of the “Central Park Five” who with four other Black and Latino men were falsely accused and convicted of raping and beating a white jogger in Central Park in 1989. Their convictions were eventually overturned through DNA evidence.

In the very brief encounter, an officer asks Salaam to roll down his windows and identifies himself. Salaam tells the officer he is on the City Council and asks why he was pulled over, according to audio of the encounter published by The New York Times.

The officer backs off and tells Salaam, “Oh, OK. Have a good one” before walking away, body camera footage shows. The NYPD later released a statement that said Salaam was pulled over for driving with dark window tints beyond the legal limit. Adams praised the conduct of both the officer and Salaam in his WNYC interview.

Though such a stop would not be covered by the transparency bill — police already have to record information when they pull a driver over — Salaam argued the encounter underscored the need for greater police transparency.

“This experience only amplified the importance of transparency for all police investigative stops, because the lack of transparency allows racial profiling and unconstitutional stops of all types to occur and often go underreported,” Salaam said in a statement.

In an emotional moment just before casting his vote to override the mayor’s veto, Salaam said “if these laws were in place in 1989…” before trailing off, his voice breaking as he got visibly choked up, referring to his arrest and conviction.

City Council Member Kevin Riley, a Bronx Democrat who is Black, related his own experience of being detained by police simply for hunting for a parking spot on Manhattan’s Upper West Side while fresh out of college as he voted for the law.

“This is something we deal with on a daily basis,” he said. “When we see those red and blue lights, our hearts drop into our stomachs.”

The Council also voted Tuesday to override Adams’ veto of a bill that would ban solitary confinement in the city’s jails.

The law places a four-hour limit on isolating inmates who pose an immediate risk of violence to others or themselves in “de-escalation” units. Only those involved in violent incidents could be placed in longer-term restrictive housing, and they would need to be allowed out of their cells for 14 hours each day and get access to the same programming available to other inmates.

In his letter vetoing that bill, Adams argued the restrictions would put inmates and corrections officers alike at risk. He also cited concerns raised by a federal monitor appointed to evaluate operations at the city’s jails.

The bill, which passed through City Council at the end of 2023 by a 35-9 margin and seven abstentions, was vetoed by Adams earlier in January, setting up a battle with the legislative body.

There are 51 members of City Council, and it will take 34 votes to override the mayor’s veto.

The council override vote is set for Tuesday afternoon. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said she was “very confident” there were enough votes in favor of the bill to make it veto-proof.

NYPD Jan 27

Councilmember Yusef Salaam says NYPD stopped him in Harlem, refused to give reason why

NYPD Jan 19

Eric Adams set for showdown with NYC council after back-to-back bill veto

What does the “How Many Stops” Act do, and why is it controversial?

The act would require the NYPD to log all public interactions, which advocates have emphasized will support transparency in the department. But critics have said it creates too much paperwork and can slow down police work.

What’s actually in the bill? Police officer doing any investigation would need to note:

• Race, ethnicity, gender and age of all people they talk to in connection with the case.
• The “reason for the investigative encounter”
• Whether the individual was stopped “based on observations, response to a dispatch from a police radio, witness or another basis”
• Whether a summons was issued or an arrest made
• Whether there was any use of force

Michael Sisitzky of the NYCLU, which is in support of the bill, said that the bill wouldn’t add all that much work than police already do.

“It is the baseline level of transparency to know where stops are happening and basic information — why they’ve been approached by an officer,” said Sisitzky. “NYPD officers have department-issued smartphones where they do reports already just by clicking drop-down menus between deployments.”

But Mayor Adams has said while he supports the spirit of the bill, he thinks it will hurt public safety. By forcing officers to record every witness in a missing persons case, for example, it could drastically slow them down and slow down the investigation, and delay finding the individual.

“Say you talk to 1,000 people — that’s 3,000 extra minutes. Forty-nine hours. Two full days,” the mayor said.

Police are required to document information on major investigation, such as who they talk to and where. But it’s not the case for day-to-day routine stops.

Police made a last ditch effort Monday night to convince lawmakers public safety is on the line, arguing it’ll lead to officers spending more time filling out paperwork rather than fighting crime.

“It takes our time away from the street. It affects response time and ultimately it affects the community,” said NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell. “They call it level one stops. It’s an encounter, it’s an inquiry. It has nothing to do with suspicion. It has nothing to do with stopping someone. Stopping someone is implying they’re not free to go. Level one encounter, people are free to go. They don’t have to speak to us. They can keep walking.”

NYPD stop of Councilman Yusuf Salaam

Putting heat on the debate regarding the bill was the bodycam video release of Yusuf Salaam being pulled over this past weekend. Salaam, whom many will recall was one of the Exonerated Five, was pulled over Friday night for driving a car with improperly tinted windows.

Salaam was elected to City Council in 2023, representing the 9th District in Harlem.

In a statement, Salaam said “I asked the officer why I was pulled over. Instead of answering my question, the officer stated, ‘We’re done here,’ and proceeded to walk away.”

The NYPD released video of the stop and documentation — seemingly supporting the viewpoint of the bill’s defenders.

“My biggest takeaway from that is the police department can put out video whenever they want to,” said NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. “It’s not interrupting police work, it actually is police work.”

In regards to the police stop of Salaam, the mayor praised everyone involved.

“I think we are attempting to find a problem when there is no problem. They did it right,” said Adams, questioning if the officer was even able to hear Salaam’s questions. “It was on a street, there was noise, I don’t know if the officer even heard him.”

Chell supported the officer, saying “Harlem should be so proud to have such a professional officer working in Harlem, protecting the streets and courteous to the community. That’s the kind of cop we need in the city and we’re very proud of how he handled that car stop.”

Former NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan said that the stop “is not the kind of stop that applies to this bill,” and it would be “wrong to make this a news story.”

But retired NYPD Lieutenant Edward Raymond was not convinced.

“It’s still profiling. That same model with tints in Bay Ridge or the Upper West Side would not be stopped,” said Raymond. “Officers are already asked to characterize their body camera footage — this is just additional data.”

Adams delivered his third State of the City address Wednesday, taking a decidedly more upbeat tone as his administration battles fresh budget concerns and the ongoing migrant crisis. Both were among the Democrat’s topics he addressed, as were homelessness, driving down crime and driving out rats.

Perhaps most notably from his address was his emphasis on social media, which he blasted as an “environmental toxin.” The city’s health department declared social media a public health crisis, warning that children under the age of 14 should steer clear. In a subsequent post on social media, Adams said young people in particular were being targeted, adding that he “won’t let Big Tech endanger our kids.”

“We need to protect our children from harm online…Companies like Tik Tok, YouTube, Facebook are fueling a mental health crisis by designing their platform with addictive and dangerous features,” the mayor said. “We cannot stand by and let Big Tech monetize our children’s privacy and jeopardize their mental health.

The mayor announced several new initiatives as well, including a new agency to coordinate and improve protocols for delivery bikes, saying during his speech that the city “cannot have mopeds speeding down our sidewalks and forcing people to jump out of the way.”

He also promised plans for 500,000 housing units by 2033, and nearly a million new jobs.

The annual status update for New York City came as the mayor awaits a showdown with the City Council after back-to-back vetoes on bills that would have respectively increased transparency in NYPD encounters with civilians and banned solitary confinement in city jails. The Council has enough votes to override both vetoes and says it intends to.

There was just one direct reference to the big battle brewing over the bill, as Adams extended an olive branch of sorts to Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.

“My mommy used to say… ‘I love you and there’s nothing you can do about it,'” the mayor said to Adams, to which she smiled and mouthed in reply, “I love you too.”

While New York Public Advocate Jumaane Williams praised the speech as aspirational, he also said the mayor has been spreading falsehoods that the police bill would burden officers with paperwork.

“It’s so fascinatingly false,” said Williams. “All we’re saying is a couple more seconds in what they have to do at the end of their tour. We did say if it’s easier to do after your stops, then just do it then.”

Adams pulled out slogans from his successful run for mayor in 2022, repeating that when crime goes down, jobs and tourism go up. But as for the unpopular migrant crisis, the city’s budget woes or the ongoing federal investigation into his fundraising, Adams made minimal references, only saying that his administration “stayed focused, no distractions, and we grind.”

“We are not out of the woods, but I am very proud we were able to cut the budget…the mayor was very focused on the fiscal management,” said Anne Williams-Isom, the deputy mayor for Health and Human Services.

Adams did discuss the city’s homeless outreach program, the HOPE (Homeless Outreach Population Estimate) Count, to get a more accurate picture of the crisis and disseminate help. Volunteers fan out across the city trying to identify individuals experiencing homelessness, which will include migrants this year.

This year’s HOPE Count comes as shelters across the city are being inundated with asylum seekers. Last week, four shelters housing migrants imposed a curfew to mitigate instances of asylum seekers allegedly going door-to-door begging for cash and food. 

Regarding the growing crisis, Gov. Kathy Hochul, also a Democrat, committed $2.4 billion to help the state manage the situation.

Adams has said that budget cuts may be averted by April if the city receives enough funding from the state and federal government to manage the humanitarian crisis.

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The “pioneering medical debt relief program” is slated to clear more than $2 billion in debts over the next several years through a partnership with RIP Medical Debt.

“Up to half a million New Yorkers will see their medical debt wiped thanks to this life changing program — the largest municipal initiative of its kind in the country,” Adams said in a statement.

“No one chooses to go into medical debt — if you’re sick or injured, you need to seek care. But no New Yorker should have to choose between paying rent or for other essentials and paying off their medical debt, which is why we are proud to bring this relief to families across the five boroughs, as we continue to fight on behalf of working-class New Yorkers.”

The one-time debt relief program launches early this year and is expected to run for three years.

Through an $18 million investment, the city and RIP Medical Debt will buy up debt portfolios from health care providers and hospitals in the city. According to the plan, there is no application process. Affected New Yorkers will simply be notified if and when their debt has been relieved.

Qualifying New Yorkers must have a household income at or below 400% of the Federal Poverty line or have medical debt equal to at least 5% of their income.

In its announcement, the City aims to supplement part of its investment through additional fundraising efforts.

City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan said people should not be forced to choose between paying rent or getting necessary health care services.

“Medical debt caused by the exorbitant and ever-rising costs of health care is the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States, and also has our economy on an unsustainable path,” Vasan said in a statement.

New York City’s mayor vetoed bills Friday aimed at banning solitary confinement in city jails and requiring more transparency in police encounters with civilians, setting up a faceoff with the City Council, which says it has enough votes to override him.

Democratic Mayor Eric Adams said the solitary confinement restrictions would make jails more dangerous and that the expanded reporting requirements for police would only bog down officers in paperwork, putting public safety at risk.

The former police captain announced his veto of the police stops bill during a City Hall news conference, where he was joined by law enforcement officials and community leaders.

Adams argued that the new mandates would harm the police work that led to an overall drop in crime last year, including a 12% decline in homicides and a 25% decrease in shootings.

“We don’t want to handcuff police. We want to handcuff bad people. That’s the goal,” Adams said. “It’s about making sure we’re not preventing them from doing their job.”

Hours later — and with decidedly less fanfare — the mayor’s office announced that he had also vetoed the solitary confinement bill, citing concerns raised by a federal monitor appointed to evaluate operations at the city’s jails.

“Under our administration, the city’s jails are getting safer — but this bill would have taken us in the wrong direction,” Adams said in the written announcement.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, a fellow Democrat who is not related to the mayor, confirmed that the council was prepared to override him on both fronts.

She argued that the jail restrictions are needed to address problems at Riker’s Island, which faces possible federal takeover in order to curb violence at the infamous island jail complex. She also pushed back at the mayor’s claims that solitary confinement has not been utilized in city jails for years.

“Solitary confinement, by any name, has been proven to cause physical, psychological, and emotional harm, and its use has contributed to continued violence and deaths on Rikers Island,” the speaker said in a statement “We cannot allow the human rights and safety crisis on Rikers to continue by maintaining the status quo of failed policies and practices. ”

She also argued the policing bill was warranted because civilian complaints against officers are at their highest level in more than a decade.

“The false narrative that we cannot have transparency is bad for our city, and belies the fact that accountability is vital to improving public safety by increasing trust,” Adams said in a separate statement.

The solitary confinement bill would place a four-hour limit on isolating inmates who pose an immediate risk of violence to others or themselves in “de-escalation” units.

Only those involved in violent incidents could be placed in longer-term restrictive housing, and they would need to be allowed out of their cells for 14 hours each day and get access to the same programming available to other inmates.

The policing bill, known as the “ How Many Stops Act,” requires officers to publicly report on all investigative stops, including relatively low-level encounters with civilians.

Among other things, the legislation would require the NYPD to report on where the stops happen, demographic information on the person stopped, the reason for the encounter, and whether the encounter led to any use-of-force or enforcement action.

Police are currently only required to fill out reports following stops in which they question and search civilians.

The council approved the two measures in the final days of 2023 with enough votes backing both bills to overrule a mayoral veto and ensure they become law, unless several members change their stance.

Local groups that supported the measures urged the council to immediately hold an override vote.

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who introduced the bills, dismissed Adams’ criticism as “fear-mongering” and misinformation.

“A full understanding of the legislation makes it clear that enacting these reforms will be good for public safety, while preventing them will make our city less safe,” he said in a statement ahead of the mayor’s vetoes.

Investigators looked into whether Jenkins had tried to conceal violations, first reported by the News 4 I-Team on July 20, 2022, involving migrant families with children left overnight at the City’s homeless intake office instead of being placed in proper shelter. 

But former Commissioner Gary Jenkins declared he had been “cleared of any wrongdoing” and that he “communicated transparently to City Hall.”

DOI’s Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber disputed this in an interview Wednesday with the the News 4 I-Team.

“The facts that we found were that he was not fully transparent. So to the extent that his statement suggested that we found him to be fully transparent? That’s not accurate,” Strauber said.

Family after family told the I-Team they had been left to sleep for days on benches and floors of the Bronx building known as PATH, without enough food, after completing traumatic and arduous journeys through the jungle. Some described 60-80 families at a time living on the waiting room floor “like dogs.”

City officials, including Mayor Eric Adams, have insisted the violations impacted only four or five families and that no families ever spent multiple days there. 

According to the DOI report released Tuesday, Commissioner Jenkins “appeared to minimize, if not misrepresent the circumstances” at the intake office, leaving senior officials at City Hall without an understanding of the violations and their implications until they were reported publicly by the I-Team.  

The DOI opened its investigation in August 2022, after the I-Team reported Jenkins fired his chief spokeswoman Julia Savel. Savel had informed City Hall about the violations and claimed Jenkins was trying to cover them up. 

Text messages obtained by the I-Team showed Savel telling one of Mayor Adams’ press aides, “Gary was trying to not tell City Hall we broke the law. I got yelled at for telling you.” The City Hall aide wrote back “Oy.”

Jenkins has insisted that Savel’s complaints about him were not why he fired her, though he declined to elaborate.

After her termination, Savel told the I-Team that before the migrant influx had become public, she had urged Jenkins and other officials to come clean about the violations due to an overwhelmed system, but was met with what she described as “an intentional cover up.” Savel said that in response to our questions, she was ordered to draft an untrue statement saying the city was “meeting its legal mandate.”

In retrospect, City insiders agree with the sudden surge of 2,700 migrants into the shelter system in the summer of 2022, some New Yorkers might have been willing to forgive violations of this sort. But homeless advocates and past city officials agree leaving children and families overnight at this intake office has long been considered a no-no. 

In decades past, after notorious pile-ups of families here, the court has held city officials in contempt.

Families who arrive at PATH by 10 p.m. are supposed to be placed in shelter by 4 a.m., under Section 21-313 of the City’s administrative code, a longstanding policy known as the 10-4 rule designed to protect children in shelter. 

DOI concluded that City officials underreported the number of 10-4 violations and that the full scope cannot be known, because of the poor quality of available evidence. In its report, the DOI says it was able to verify at least 11 violations.

The report recommends changes to the city’s recordkeeping at PATH, citing software systems taken out of service, false data reports and even surveillance tape that was inexplicably missing for key dates and times.

“That kind of insufficient recordkeeping raises a significant risk that the information that’s made public and that’s disclosed will be inaccurate,” Strauber said. “There was a period of time when there was inaccurate information in the public about how many people had spent the night at PATH.”

DOI investigators say they requested security video from the PATH intake center, which would have helped assess the conditions, the number of families, and the times when families arrived and departed.

According to the report, DOI was told that a failed backup server had resulted in missing video. The report says both City shelter officials and vendors were unable to provide any proof that their server failed, adding that “the vendors told DOI they could not definitively rule out tampering.”

In 2022, when the arrival of migrants started impacting operations at the shelter system entrypoint, no violation of this rule had been alleged for at least a decade prior, and the practice of leaving families in this office had previously been the subject of contentious, protracted litigation brought by the Legal Aid Society on behalf of the homeless.

According to the report, “Jenkins decided to delay notifying the Legal Aid Society and Coalition for the Homeless, the court-appointed monitor for the City’s shelter system,” a decision DOI describes as “a departure from longstanding practice.” The report says that while the delay was brief, roughly 24 hours, “Jenkins could not provide DOI with a sufficient explanation for it.”

On July 21, 2022, one day after the I-Team’s first report, Mayor Adams announced the City had violated the 10-4 policy just four times (he later amended the number to five.) Adams said he had just learned of the violations, and defended Commissioner Jenkins, who claimed he was unaware the City’s actions had violated the law.

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According to the DOI report, Jenkins had been informed about the violations three days earlier, on July 18. That morning, he sent a text message to Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom in City Hall, saying “It’s getting rough. I just learned we had some families past the 4am assignment at Path this morning.”

DOI concludes that Jenkins’ text message did not convey the full factual or legal context and left the deputy mayor with the sense that this was “a small operational issue.”

“Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom informed DOI that in retrospect she was frustrated that Jenkins did not provide additional context before July 20, when the City found itself ill-prepared to respond to public allegations concerning families’ experiences at PATH,” according to DOI.

As for Jenkins’ termination of Savel, DOI says it conducted only a limited inquiry into the reasons for Savel’s firing and was unable to reach a conclusion on this issue. 

According to the report, investigators “found some evidence supporting Julia Savel’s claim that her termination resulted principally from her conversations with City Hall.”

But the report says investigators also saw evidence suggesting Jenkins’ claim that Savel’s termination was due to “documented instances where she was reportedly unprofessional.” In its report, however, DOI does not list any examples of the behavior Jenkins allegedly found unprofessional.

In 2022, Savel told the I-Team, “My performance was never in question.”

In a statement Tuesday, Jenkins said, “I’m pleased to be cleared of any wrongdoing. I communicated transparently to City Hall and proudly stand by my tenure, especially given the unprecedented, unpredictable nature of the migrant crisis.”

Jenkins stepped down as commissioner of the NYC Department of Social Services in February 2023, after just one year in the job. He has since joined Oaktree Solutions, a firm founded by Mayor Adams’ chief campaign fundraiser and former Chief of Staff Frank Carone.

Savel, meanwhile, is ineligible for whistleblower protection, according to the report, because she took her complaints about Jenkins’ alleged cover up to City Hall instead of to DOI. 

“Obviously her claims did bring certain issues to light that we followed up on,” Commissioner Strauber said.

The DOI is an independent investigative agency whose commissioner is appointed by the mayor and must be confirmed by the City Council.

Strauber says City Hall did not interfere in this investigation and that she does not know why Jenkins left his position.

That’s the story seemingly told by Adams in a book he wrote and was published 15 years ago.

The beginning of chapter 8 in the book “Don’t Let It Happen,” written by then State Senator Eric Adams and published in 2009, details a story wherein a young Adams fired a gun at school.

The book’s passage described a moment when he claimed to point a “toy gun” at his friends and pulled the trigger, only to find a real round discharge from the gun. No one was hurt, according to the story.

“When I was a child, a friend of mine brought a gun to school…to show off to the rest of the students. This was my first time seeing a real gun. After years of playing ‘Cowboys and Indians’ with toy guns, I did not believe the gun he was showing us was real. I laughed at his stupid trick and grabbed the gun from him. ‘If this gun is real,’ I said, ‘then it should go off.’ I pointed what I thought was a toy gun at my group of friends and pulled the trigger. A round discharged, and only by the grace of God and my poor aim did the bullet miss my friends. The incident scared me so much that I dropped the gun and ran.”

Adams’ book first came to attention last week in a Byline article. Fast forward to Monday, when a reporter from the Associated Press questioned Adams about the particular chapter during an off-topic press conference at City Hall.

“I never fired a gun in school,” Adams told the AP reporter.

“I think the person who, the co-author of the book, may have misunderstood the exact—someone. There was an incident in school where someone pointed what they thought was a toy gun and they may have misunderstood—that book never got into print because we never went through the proofreading aspect of it.”

A journalist from THE CITY also attending the briefing had a copy of “Don’t Let It Happen” on hand. She held it up as the mayor exited the press conference, asking him to clarify his co-author remarks.

When News 4 asked for City Hall to expand on the mayor’s comments, a spokesperson said Adams is looking into the book’s publication.

“The story should not have been published, the mayor is looking into it. As he said, the co-author may have misunderstood the story,” First Deputy Press Secretary Charles Kretchmer Lutvak wrote in an email.

The book is listed on a number of online sellers, including Amazon, where it’s available for purchase for $13.62. In the online description of the book, no co-author is listed — but the cover does indicate his partner Tracey Collins contributes a forward to the book.

The lawsuit is intended to cover past shelter, food, and health care costs for migrants transported from Texas, as well as future costs of migrants already here and migrants who may be transported in the future, according to the mayor’s office. The city said more than 33,600 migrants have already been transported to NYC from Texas.

The Adams administration has been trying to navigate ways to stem the tide of buses bringing migrants to the city and the mayor said he hopes the lawsuit serves as a warning for future transports.

“New York City has and will always do our part to manage this humanitarian crisis, but we cannot bear the costs of reckless political ploys from the state of Texas alone,” Adams said in a statement. “Today, we are taking legal action against 17 companies that have taken part in Texas Governor Abbott’s scheme to transport tens of thousands of migrants to New York City in an attempt to overwhelm our social services system.”

Gov. Abbott said Adams is “interfering” with the migrants’ “constitutional authority” to travel.

“This lawsuit is baseless and deserves to be sanctioned. It’s clear that Mayor Adams knows nothing about the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, or about the constitutional right to travel that has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court. Every migrant bused or flown to New York City did so voluntarily, after having been authorized by the Biden Administration to remain in the United States,” Abbott said in a statement.

In December, Adams announced an executive order requiring charter buses to only drop off migrants between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and noon on weekdays, and only at a specific location — West 41st Street by the Port Authority Bus Terminal — or face fines. The order also required a notice period of 32 hours before arriving in the city.

In order to “thwart” the order and take advantage of a “loophole,” charter buses were dropping off migrants in New Jersey cities before they boarded a train to New York, according to the mayor of Secaucus.

A spokesperson for New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said the administration is working with federal and local partners, including New York City.

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“Our Administration has tracked the recent arrival of a handful buses of migrant families at various NJ TRANSIT train stations,” said Tyler Jones, deputy press secretary for Murphy, in a statement. “New Jersey is primarily being used as a transit point for these families — all or nearly all of them continued with their travels en route to their final destination of New York City.”

In the lawsuit, the city accuses the bus companies of acting in “bad faith” by profiting off bringing migrants to the city. The city said many of the companies being targeted in the lawsuit “are the same companies that are now evading compliance with the executive order by busing migrants to New Jersey train stations.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she supports NYC’s lawsuit.

NBC New York has reached out to the bus companies named in the lawsuit for any comment.

New York City’s teachers union is suing to block planned cuts to the city’s public schools, warning that steep budget reductions proposed by Mayor Eric Adams would weaken key education initiatives and violate state law.

For months, Adams has argued that slashing city spending – including a $550 million cut in education funding – is necessary to offset the rising costs of New York’s migrant crisis. But in a lawsuit filed in state court on Thursday, the United Federation of Teachers accused the mayor of exaggerating the city’s fiscal woes in order to push through a “blunt austerity measure” that is both illegal and unnecessary.

The lawsuit rests on a state law that prevents New York City from reducing school spending unless overall revenues decline. Because the city outperformed revenue expectations this fiscal year, the mid-year education cuts – which will hurt universal prekindergarten and after-school programs, as well as special needs students – are illegal, the suit alleges.

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“This is going to become difficult and ugly,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said at a news conference on Thursday. “We have never had an administration try to cut their schools when they have historic reserves and their revenues are all up.”

Adams, a moderate Democrat, has faced growing fallout over a multibillion dollar budget cut announced last month that will slash hours at public libraries, eliminate parks and sanitation programs and freeze police hiring, among other cutbacks in municipal services.

Since then, he has seen his poll numbers drop to the lowest point since taking office nearly two years ago. He is currently facing a separate lawsuit from the city’s largest public sector union, DC 37, aimed at stopping the cuts.

At a news conference on Thursday, Adams sought to downplay the lawsuits, touting his close relationship with the two politically influential unions.

“From time to time, friends disagree,” Adams said. “Sometimes it ends up in a boardroom and sometimes it ends up in a courtroom.”

While he has acknowledged the cuts will be “extremely painful to New Yorkers,” Adams has urged city residents to hold the White House accountable for not sending sufficient aid to address the migrant crisis. And he has warned even deeper cuts may be needed to address the budget shortfall, which he projects will hit $7 billion in the coming fiscal year.

A recent analysis from the Independent Budget Office, meanwhile, appears to bolster the unions’ contention that the city’s fiscal crisis is not as dire as the mayor has made it out to be. According to the agency, the city will end the fiscal year in June with a budget surplus of $3.6 billion, leading to a far more manageable budget gap next year of $1.8 billion.

In the lawsuit, the teachers union cites the estimate as proof that Adams’ “calculatingly foreboding” picture of New York City’s finances is not based in reality.

“The Mayor’s recent actions,” the suit alleges, “are driven more by a ‘crisis’ of budget management, leadership and problem solving, as opposed to an influx of migrants to New York.”

As New York City Mayor Eric Adams finds himself in the middle of a federal investigation and wraps up his second year in City Hall, the voters are reacting to the job performance — giving a historic 28% approval rating in a Quinnipiac poll released on Wednesday.

This is the lowest approval rating for a New York City mayor since Quinnipiac polling began in 1996. Residents polled were asked about the mayor’s handling of crime, public schools, the migrant crisis, the city budget and homelessness.

“There’s no good news for Mayor Adams in this poll. Not only are voters giving him poor grades on the job he’s doing at City Hall, their views on his character have dimmed,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Assistant Director Mary Snow, who continued, “As the city faces across-the-board budget cuts while dealing with a migrant crisis, headlines about a federal investigation into the mayor’s 2021 campaign and an accusation of sexual assault leveled against him from 30 years ago are taking a toll.”

Over 80% of voters are concerned that the citywide budget cuts will impact everyday routines, while nearly two-thirds of those polled support raising taxes on the wealthy.

Regarding the ongoing migrant crisis, his numbers aren’t much better. More than 8-in-10 voters are concerned by the influx of migrants and if the city can handle the growing number of migrants. Voters also overwhelmingly think the federal government is not doing enough to back the city.

Tied for the most urgent issues that New Yorkers believe they are facing are affordable housing and crime, followed by immigration, homelessness and inflation.

Almost 60% of participants think crime is a very serious problem, which is down from almost 75% in February of last year.

Looking at personal traits, over 50% of voters believe Adams does not possess strong leadership qualities, does not understand the people’s problems and is not an honest individual.

Voters were also asked about other public officials, including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who was given a 45% approval rate.

NBC New York reached out to City Hall in response to the recent survey. City Hall Deputy Mayor for Communications Fabien Levy responded to the results: “Incorrect polls come out every day, but the real numbers cannot be questioned: crime is down, jobs are up, and we continue to deliver billions of dollars into the pockets of working people. There will always be more work to do, but there is no question that this city is in a better place under Mayor Adams’ leadership.”

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, City Comptroller Brad Lander, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, NYC Schools Chancellor David Banks and NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban all fell under a 45% approval rate.

In a separate survey conducted by American Pulse & Research Polling, the former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is gaining steam in a hypothetical 2025 Democratic primary race for City Hall.

Within this poll released Tuesday, more than 40% of Democrats favored Cuomo to just over 20% for Adams with about 30% undecided.

The American Pulse & Research Polling was paid for by Curtis Sliwa, the GOP opponent in the NYC mayoral election in 2021, and shared by a press release by Maria Sliwa Public Relations on Thursday.

“In a city where the words ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ are embedded in its history, voters express there’s a limit,” said Snow.

The suit, brought by a woman who says she worked with the Democrat as employees of the city three decades ago, alleges serious charges including sexual assault, battery, and employment discrimination based on gender, in addition to claims of retaliation and the creation of a hostile work environment. The filing did not go into details about Lorna Beach Mathura’s claims.

The notice filed electronically Wednesday has not yet been processed by the clerk and seeks no less than $5 million dollars, as well as attorney’s fees and interest, at a jury trial.  The complaint references violations of multiple legal frameworks, including the New York State Human Rights Law, the New York City Human Rights Law, and the Victims of Gender Motivated Violence Protection Act.

In response to the allegations, a spokesperson for City Hall told NBC New York that the mayor doesn’t know who the plaintiff is.

“If they ever met, he doesn’t recall it. But he would never do anything to physically harm another person and vigorously denies any such claim,” the spokesperson said.

Megan Goddard, the attorney listed in court papers as representing Mathura, was not immediately reached by phone Thursday. NBC New York has left messages for Goddard, and two phone numbers connected to Mathura were out of service.

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A search by NBC New York found several other lawsuits filed under the same name – Lorna Beach Mathura, including an unsuccessful lawsuit against American Airlines in 2014 and another case against Miami Dade County in which the plaintiff alleged being “abused by a 6 year old kindergarten student.”

On Amazon’s website, a book listed for $9.06 authored by a Lorna Beach Mathura offers pro se legal advice based on “many years spent fighting for myself and others in various courts” including “small claims, civil, circuit, family, lower appellate, and the United States Supreme Court.”

The book description includes advice such as “Never give up. You just may win.”

When asked in person about the allegations, which date back to 1993, Mayor Adams said: “As you know, I’ve been in public life for almost 40 years. People know my character and I could just emphatically state this never took place. And it’s just not who I am. I would never do anything to harm someone.”

“Mom always used to tell me there are seasons when a lot seem to be going on and at that moment, you have to let go and let God have something to do with it. I don’t recall meeting the person and I’m going to remain steadfast in running the city,” he added.

The complaint was filed two days before the state’s Adult Survivors Act which expires on Friday, Nov. 24. This law signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul last year permits individuals to file claims of sexual assault that occurred when they were 18 or older, even if the statute of limitations has expired.

“I would say the Fire Department in my decade there has always done what is safe for New Yorkers and I have never seen otherwise,” Kavanagh said in a brief interview with News 4 Friday.

Kavanagh’s comments come two days after allegations that jobs were threatened over the desire to green-light the Turkish Consulate, a project for which Eric Adams advocated shortly before winning the mayor’s race.

Several FDNY employees including Chief Joseph Jardin, who headed the Bureau of Fire Prevention, told the FBI about the alleged pressure in April, according to Jardin’s attorney Jim Walden. Sources familiar with the FBI’s investigation say they are exploring whether the Adams campaign coordinated improper contributions from Turkish officials and whether he may have traded favors in return. Adams insists he has done nothing improper and was just conducting the normal government business he likes to call “getting stuff done.”

During the interview with News 4, Commissioner Kavanagh also confirmed that in the de Blasio and Adams administrations, City Hall has circulated a list of projects to be fast-tracked. But she denied the list was reserved for powerful developers or politicians.

“That list has always been shared widely with a large number of people and has always been about city interests. What does the city need opened?” Kavanagh said.

The existence of the list was first reported by News 4 after Walden said Chief Jardin and others had told the FBI about it.

“What my client and others have said to the FBI is that this problem of City Hall reaching into the Fire Department to do favors for other people is a longstanding problem. The FBI was told to the point that a list started circulating internally about projects that City Hall wanted to be expedited.”

Jardin’s complaints about this list — which he calls “the DMO list,” a reference to the Deputy Mayor for Operations – are included in an age discrimination lawsuit he and other chiefs have filed against the City and Kavanaugh, who demoted them. The suit alleges “the DMO list became a mechanism to force FDNY to permit politically connected developers to cut the inspection line.”

An FDNY spokesman says the fact that Jardin is suing Kavanagh raises questions about the veracity of his allegations related to threats and the Turkish consulate, stating that Jardin has “a financial interest in smearing Kavanagh’s good name.”

Kavanagh said the list rightfully includes big economic development projects that bring jobs, but also public projects like schools and hospitals.

“Over two administrations, we have had a system for dealing with all of these incoming requests. Sometimes we’re dealing with a backlog. A major backlog,” she said.

There was a backlog in 2021, during the advocacy for the Turkish consulate, according to FDNY officials and the Real Estate Board of New York, which acknowledges they regularly tried to assist developers and construction companies.

Emails obtained by News 4 show there was a sense of urgency to the consulate because Turkish officials were arriving within weeks to attend the UN General Assembly and wanted access to their new building. The emails were obtained from a source cooperating with the investigation and confirmed by others on the email chain.

The emails show that Laura Kavanagh, who served as first deputy fire commissioner at the time, was enlisted to help expedite approval by then Buildings Commissioner Melanie LaRocca and agreed to look into it. The emails do not show Kavanagh applying pressure.

Kavanagh does forward the matter to her intergovernmental staffer who asks Chief Jardin in a subsequent email, “Is it possible to get inspectors on site sooner?” adding, “please tell us what is realistic and we’ll update Laura.”

Asked whether she believes anyone at the FDNY pressured chiefs to get the consulate done, Kavanagh said, “I was not fire commissioner at the time so I can’t speak to their conversations. That was two years ago. But I would say that we get these constituent requests all the time.”

Kavanagh added that she does not believe the ultimate approval of the consulate happened because of intervention by Eric Adams. She says Adams did not contact her about the consulate.

The FBI has interviewed former Commissioner Daniel Nigro twice as a witness, not as a target of their investigation, according to a source familiar with the investigation. Nigro declined to discuss the investigation at this time.

Kavanagh said she has not been contacted by the FBI.

The next five police academy classes are canceled, which city officials estimate will bring the total number of NYPD officers from 33,000 to 29,000 in the next two years.

The city said it projects spending approximately $12 billion on the ongoing migrant crisis over the next two years.

City officials said next year’s budget gap has grown from $5 billion in June to more than $7 billion in November.

“I believe New Yorkers like plain talk, we’re in some financial trouble right now,” Adams said at an event in Chelsea.

“This is truly a disaster for every New Yorker who cares about safe streets,” Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Henry said in a statement. “Cops are already stretched to our breaking point, and these cuts will return us to staffing levels we haven’t seen since the crime epidemic of the ‘80s and ‘90s. We cannot go back there.”

Details about the city’s budget cuts are scarce in part because city officials only held a virtual briefing on Thursday and reporters were not allowed to use any quotes from it. The city did not distribute any detailed budget books.

“To balance the budget as the law requires, every city agency dug into their own budget to find savings, with minimal disruption to services,” Adams said in a statement. “And while we pulled it off this time, make no mistake: Migrant costs are going up, tax revenue growth is slowing, and COVID stimulus funding is drying up”

The administration said residents could expect a $1 billion in cuts to schools and that after-school programs will be scaled back.

“The budget cuts proposed today risk doing harm to the wellbeing of all New Yorkers, especially our most vulnerable,” City Comptroller Brad Lander said in a statement. “City Hall should stop suggesting that asylum seekers are the reason for imposing severe cuts when they are only contributing to a portion of these budget gaps, much of which already existed.”

The New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, and Queens Public Library said they would need to eliminate Sunday service.

“Without sufficient funding, we cannot sustain our current levels of service, and any further cuts to the Libraries’ budgets will, unfortunately, result in deeper service impacts,” the libraries said in a statement.

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“My client was pressured to do something unsafe,” said attorney Jim Walden, who represents Joseph Jardin, the former FDNY Chief of Fire Prevention.

Walden says Chief Jardin is one of several current and former FDNY officials approached and questioned by the FBI in the spring about a campaign to expedite the Turkish building.

“It was abundantly clear to my client and is now abundantly clear to the FBI that the people responsible (for the approval) felt as though if they didn’t do it they were going to be fired,” Walden said. 

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But he declined to say who specifically threatened the chiefs’ jobs, citing his desire not to impede an ongoing investigation. Walden says he has spoken with several witnesses who told investigators that pressure to perform political favors has been a problem at the FDNY since the de Blasio administration. 

“The FBI was told it was to the point that a list started circulating internally about projects that City Hall wanted to be expedited,” Walden said.

The round of FBI interviews in the spring came months before the news broke about a probe into Turkish campaign donations to Mayor Eric Adams, and his advocacy related to that building in the months before he became mayor.   Adams acknowledges that he texted former FDNY Commissioner Dan Nigro for help getting an FDNY letter that would enable the Buildings Department to issue a temporary certificate of occupancy. 

Two sources who have seen the text exchange say Adams explained that the DOB would approve of the temporary certificate if the fire department approved it first. Commissioner Nigro agreed to check into the situation.

Adams’ request came on September 5, 2021. Just one month earlier, the consulate’s fire protection plan had been disapproved. Emails obtained by NBC New York and confirmed by several people on the chain show the Turkish government had contractors, city officials and real estate industry representatives from the Real Estate Board of NY (REBNY) scrambling to get FDNY approval, with Turkish officials headed to town in the near future. Inspectors were not planning to return to the site until November, but Turkish diplomats were on a tight schedule. 

“Guys, we will have an international incident if we don’t get FDNY there next week,” said one of the contractors.  “UN General Assembly is in 3 weeks and Turkish President wants his building. Can you help?”

The emails show that then Borough President Eric Adams was hardly the only person asking about an expedited approval process for the consulate.

On Aug. 31, several days before Eric Adams texted Nigro, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Buildings Commissioner Melanie Larocca emailed Adams’ future FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh,  who was serving as first deputy commissioner at the time. Larocca wrote: “Hey Laura, Hope you are well! FYI — you might want to intervene here — this is a property owned by the government of Turkey and is their future embassy. Looks like then [sic] need FD action.”

Kavanagh responded two hours later “we will look into it,” looping in her intergovernmental aide Jason Shelly.

In a subsequent email, Shelly messaged Jardin and Assistant Chief Kevin Brennan to say “Laura asked me to see if you are able to help with this request that she received from the DOB commissioner.”  Shelly asked “Is it possible to get inspectors on site sooner? They are asking for next week… Please tell us what is realistic and we’ll update Laura.”

Walden says FDNY insiders believed there was no way the system could have been brought to code in the short month since it had failed inspection.

Fire officials acknowledge the sprinkler and fire alarm systems were not yet ready and that this was why no temporary certificate of occupancy had been issued. 

“It seems, based on what I know, they weren’t really looking for an actual inspection, they were looking for a rubber stamp,” Walden said. “That if they pulled the right strings, a new set of inspections would occur and there would magically be a determination that the [fire] system worked.”

Walden suggested that Kavanagh and her team were involved in the alleged pressure campaign, but one city official briefed on the matter said they could not immediately say whether other high ranking fire officials might have applied pressure.

The emails obtained by NBC New York do not reflect the type of pressure Walden is describing. One source familiar with the text exchange said Nigro replied to Adams at one point indicating there were conflicting opinions internally about whether the Turkish consulate could be expedited.

In a statement, the FDNY’s chief spokesman Jim Long said “Internal emails make clear that commissioner Kavanagh had no meaningful involvement in how the FDNY handled this request and there is nothing to suggest the FDNY was pressured to do anything improper.”

Chief Jardin is currently one of several plaintiffs in an ongoing age discrimination lawsuit against Commissioner Kavanagh. Jim Walden is also the lawyer on that case.

An amended copy of the complaint challenges Kavanagh on several other issues, claiming she opposed Jardin’s desire to publicly support a ban on lithium ion batteries in NYCHA housing in the past and sidelined experts by putting her civilian staff largely in charge of replacing firefighter breathing gear.

After Kavanaugh demoted several senior FDNY chiefs earlier this year, others asked to be demoted in protest of Kavanagh’s leadership. Walden says the allegations of pressure over the Turkish consulate would have been included in their suit, but for the fact that the FBI wished for the matter to remain confidential while under investigation.

But Long dismissed the criticism from Walden and Jardin as being from critics with an axe to grind.

“This simply seems like an attempt by someone who is unsuccessfully suing the FDNY and Commissioner Kavanagh, and who has a financial interest in undermining the fire commissioner and smearing her good name,” said Long.

Adams told NBC New York Tuesday that Nigro was the only FDNY employee he contacted about the consulate. Fire officials said Adams did not contact Kavanagh at the time, but they say someone in de Blasio’s administration did check in on the status of the building.

Even so, fire officials said they field dozens of similar requests every week.  

Calls to former DOB Commissioner LaRocca, former Mayor de Blasio and the contractors on the consulate were not returned.

REBNY, which assisted with the consulate issue, noted that during 2021 COVID had contributed to a slower FDNY inspection process.

 “At that time it was widely understood that the FDNY had a very lengthy response time for processing plans and inspecting buildings which made such requests especially common at various buildings throughout the city,” said REBNY spokesman Sam Spokony.

Ultimately, Turkey got what it wanted. On September, 10 2021, five days after Adams’ initial text message, Jardin signed a conditional letter of no objection which essentially punted the power to approve the temporary occupancy to the Buildings Department, but only if DOB conducted a successful test of the fire alarm and suppression systems.

Walden says that conditional letter was Jardin’s way of expressing his displeasure with the situation. But one insider questioned: If Jardin was so concerned about safety, why did he sign it?

NBC New York’s Courtney Copenhagen, Chris Glorioso and Hilary Weissman contributed to this report.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared that “we follow the law” but deflected key questions amid an ongoing federal investigation into his 2021 campaign fundraising, including his past contact with the FDNY regarding permit issues for a new building that was set to house the new Turkish consulate.

At Tuesday’s press conference, the mayor kept many of his answers in connection with the criminal investigation limited. Adams insisted that he is cooperating with federal investigators in what he called a “review,” but would not speculate on its outcome. He and his chief counsel repeatedly told reporters they were not going to answer questions about why the FBI seized his phones, because they did not want to impede the ongoing criminal investigation.

Chief Counsel Lisa Zornberg did say there was no information to suggest Adams is a target of the criminal investigation or accused of any wrongdoing, noting that “there has been no indication that I’ve seen that the mayor is a target.”

When asked if he would resign should he be indicted, Adams said he would not speculate on that.

“You are all the way downfield, I’m going to continue to do the job as the mayor as long as [it’s] my responsibility to do the job,” said Adams.

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Adams and Zornberg declined to say whether other administration or campaign figures’ electronics were turned over, whether the FBI had asked to interview the mayor, or who or what another Adams attorney meant in saying last week that “an individual had recently acted improperly.”

Questions continue to swirl about whether the mayor’s campaign improperly took foreign money from individuals overseas in Turkey – donations that may have been improperly bundled.

The mayor said he does not believe his campaign or members of his staff engaged in any criminal wrongdoing, noting that he repeatedly tells his team they need to follow the law.

“We don’t do the straw donors. We don’t, you know, do quid pro quo. We follow the law. I’m very clear on that,” Adams said Tuesday.

Adams did confirm that as mayor-elect, he made a request on behalf of the Turkish government, reaching out to then-FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro to ask him to help expedite the opening of the new Turkish consulate. Sources familiar with the matter told NBC New York that Adams asked Nigro about occupancy testing for the 35-story building could take place.

“Yes I did reach out to the commissioner — this is what elected officials do. When a constituency reaches out to us for assistance to another agency…you reach out to another agency and ask them to look into the matter. You don’t reach out to compel them to do anything, because I had no authority to do so, I was the borough president,” Adams said.“We don’t do the straw donors. We don’t, you know, do quid pro quo. We follow the law. I’m very clear on that,” Adams said Tuesday.

Two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said Adams forwarded a Sept. 2021 text requesting help from the Turkish consulate to Nigro asking the fire commissioner to take a look at the issue. Nigro responded later saying a letter allowing occupancy would be handled by the following Monday, the sources said.

Adams said his text to the fire commissioner was a routine request and there was no undue pressure nor quid pro quo. He said he did not speak with any other fire department official. At the time, Adams had just won the Democratic primary election and was Brooklyn borough president at the time the text messages were sent.

“As a borough president, part of my routine role was to notify government agencies of issues on behalf of constituents and constituencies. I have not been accused of wrongdoing and I will continue to cooperate with investigators,” Adams previously said through a campaign spokesperson.

A source familiar with the matter said former FDNY Commissioner Nigro was questioned as a witness by the FBI as least twice, most recently on Nov. 3. Reached by phone, Nigro said, “I prefer not to comment at this time.”

Two sources familiar with the investigation said safety officials at the FDNY signed off on a letter of occupancy with no objection, meaning the FDNY had reached an agreement with the building for added safety measures that would allow for access to the building.

According to The New York Times, a fire protection consultant working on the Turkevi Center reported numerous deficiencies involving smoke detectors, elevators, doors and other components used to prevent fires. After the consultant, Sparc Fire Protection Engineering, said guards would be put on a fire watch until all the issues were resolved, the fire department issued a temporary certificate allowing the building to be occupied.

The sources added that the owners of the building wanted to gain access in part because Turkish leaders were soon coming to New York for the U.N. General Assembly. Days later, on Sept. 21, 2021, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cut the ribbon on the Turkevi Center.

Spokespersons for the U.S. attorney’s office, the FBI and the DOI have declined to comment. A spokesperson for the FDNY also declined to comment. The Turkish Embassy in Washington has not responded to email requests for comment.

The Turkish Consulate building, known as the Turkevi Center, along First Avenue still has temporary certificate of occupancy, sources familiar with the matter said.

The questions came as the FBI was already investigating whether Turkish individuals improperly donated, or were involved in the improper bundling of contributions, to the Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign.

Adams has made numerous trips to Turkey in recent years and the timing of the consulate’s opening coincided with a visit to New York by Turkish President Erdogan.

On Nov. 2, the FBI searched the home of top campaign fundraiser Brianna Suggs, who has not been accused of wrongdoing. The development prompted Adams to bail out of a scheduled White House meeting and fly home from Washington, later explaining he wanted to be among his staffers because “a leader needs to be here during those difficult times.”

Part of the investigation focuses on whether money from overseas was improperly bundled into the mayor’s 2021 campaign. Investigators are also looking into donations from people associated with KSK construction, a firm whose owners have ties to Turkey.

As he was leaving an event, the FBI seized Mayor Adams’ cellphones on Nov. 6 in connection with the criminal investigation.

No criminal charges have been filed in the matter and the investigation is ongoing.

These questions come as the FBI was already investigating whether Turkish individuals improperly donated, or were involved in the improper bundling of contributions, to the Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign.

Sources familiar with the matter said the mayor texted with then-FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro about when occupancy for the 35-story building could take place.

Two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said Adams forwarded a Sept. 2021 text requesting help from the Turkish consulate to Nigro asking the fire commissioner to take a look at the issue. Nigro responded later saying a letter allowing occupancy would be handled by the following Monday, the sources said.

Adams said his text to the fire commissioner was a routine request. The mayor had just won the Democratic primary election and was Brooklyn borough president at the time the text messages were sent.

“As a borough president, part of my routine role was to notify government agencies of issues on behalf of constituents and constituencies. I have not been accused of wrongdoing and I will continue to cooperate with investigators,” Adams said through a campaign spokesperson Sunday.

A source familiar with the matter said former FDNY Commissioner Nigro was questioned as a witness by the FBI as least twice, most recently on Nov. 3. Reached by phone, Nigro said, “I prefer not to comment at this time.”

Two sources familiar with the investigation said that safety officials at the FDNY signed off on a letter of occupancy with no objection, meaning the FDNY had reached an agreement with the building for added safety measures that would allow for access to the building.

The sources added that the owners of the building wanted to gain access in part because Turkish leaders were soon coming to New York for the U.N. General Assembly.

Spokespersons for the U.S. attorney, the FBI and the DOI declined to comment. A spokesperson for the FDNY also declined to comment. The Turkish Embassy in Washington has not responded to email requests for comment.

News of questions about the Turkish Consulate fire safety inspection were first reported by the New York Times.

It was last Monday the FBI seized Mayor Adams’ cellphones in connection with the criminal investigation.

The Turkish Consulate building, known as the Turkevi Center, along First Avenue still has temporary certificate of occupancy, sources familiar with the matter said. 

Adams has made numerous trips to Turkey in recent years and the timing of the consulate’s opening coincided with a visit to New York by Turkish President Erdogan.

On Nov. 2, the FBI searched the home of top campaign fundraiser Brianna Suggs. Part of the investigation focuses on whether money from overseas was improperly bundled into the mayor’s 2021 campaign. Investigators also looking into donations from people associated with KSK construction, a firm whose owners have ties to Turkey.

No criminal charges have been filed in the matter and the investigation is ongoing.

City Councilmember Joe Borelli (R-SI) wrote on social media scoffing at the questions about the mayor and the permitting for the Turkish consulate: “If this is really the smoking gun, its neither smoking, nor a gun…” He went on to say that if this is the alleged wrongdoing then “…Every elected official is about to be arrested.”

Mayor Eric Adams had a number of electronic devices seized by the FBI earlier this week amid a federal investigation into his campaign’s fundraising efforts and potential links to foreign powers, multiple sources familiar with the matter told NBC New York.

The New York City mayor was approached Monday evening by federal officials after an event and turned over several devices, his campaign lawyer confirmed in a statement. That includes several electronic devices, including cellphones and an iPad, a source familiar with the matter said.

“The Mayor immediately complied with the FBI’s request and provided them with electronic devices. The mayor has not been accused of any wrongdoing and continues to cooperate with the investigation,” attorney Boyd Johnson said Friday.

Johnson implied in the statement that it was the mayor and his team who informed the FBI about wrongdoing, not the other way around.

“After learning of the federal investigation, it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly. In the spirit of transparency and cooperation, this behavior was immediately and proactively reported to investigators,” the lawyer’s statement read. “The Mayor has been and remains committed to cooperating in this matter.”

News of the seizure comes a little over week after federal authorities raided a Brooklyn residence connected to a campaign fundraiser. It also explains the mayor’s announcement on Wednesday that he had hired a criminal defense firm to represent him personally, and represent his campaign as well.

Neighbors and city records indicated the home that was searched belongs to Adams’ chief fundraiser, Brianna Suggs. Agents — some dressed in suits, others in tactical gear — lugged boxes of evidence from the home to a minivan outside.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have declined to say what the investigation is about, but a search warrant obtained by the New York Times indicated that investigators are examining whether the Adams campaign conspired with the Turkish government to receive donations from foreign sources, funneled through straw donors.

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The warrant sought records related to contributions, travel to Turkey by people linked to the campaign and documents of interactions between the campaign and Turkey’s government, or people acting at its behest, the newspaper reported.

The investigation burst into public view last Wednesday following an early morning search by FBI agents at the Brooklyn home of Brianna Suggs, a 25-year-old campaign consultant who had served as Adams’ chief fundraiser in his 2021 mayoral campaign.

Adams on Wednesday said he had no personal knowledge of any improper fundraising, and didn’t believe he had anything to personally fear from the investigation. Neither Adams nor Suggs have been publicly accused of wrongdoing.

“As a former member of law enforcement, I expect all members of my staff to follow the law and fully cooperate with any sort of investigation—and I will continue to do exactly that. I have nothing to hide,” Adams said Friday.

The search last week was carried out as Adams abruptly ended his trip to Washington, D.C., when he was scheduled to meet with the Biden administration regarding the ongoing migrant crisis. He and mayors from other major U.S. cities were set to meet with senior White House officials and members of the U.S. House and Senate.

Jake Offenhartz and Michael Balsamo of the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Adams unveiled his “HealthyNYC” plan Wednesday in an effort to bring the life expectancy up to 83 years by 2030. That would be a marked improvement from the mark of 80.7 years after falling for nearly two years between 2019 and 2021, according to the mayor’s office.

“On average, New Yorkers can expect to live two fewer years than they could in 2019, the first marked decline after a century of progress,” said Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan.

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City data shows that drug overdoses and suicides continue to lead to premature deaths. But now the city-wide effort will try to “provide guideposts for our nation and its people,” said Vasan.

“Not only recovering years lost during the pandemic but also surpassing our previous high by tackling chronic disease, violence, maternal mortality, overdose, and more,” Adams said. “By refocusing all of our public health work around the goal of helping people live longer lives, we’ll build a healthier, more prosperous city where everyone can thrive.”

Before COVID, in 2019, life expectancy for New Yorkers averaged 82.6 years. That fell to 78 a year later, then rebounded to 80. The city wants to bring that back up, and to reduce the existing racial disparities.

The mayor’s office said it aims to reduce deaths connected to childbirth by 10%, overdose deaths by 25% and reduce heart- and diabetes-related deaths by 5% in the next seven years. Other goals include bringing down homicide deaths by 30%; deaths from screenable cancers (like lung, breast, colon, cervical and prostate cancers) by 20%.

The mayor made a personal connection to his mother, who suffered from diabetes for 15 years.

“I believe if we had caught some of the chronic diseases she was facing, she could’ve been with us even longer,” said Adams.

The mayor said he expects every city agency to examine issues, like housing, and make decisions to help residents live longer.

“If you don’t have stable housing, that affects sleep and mood,” Dr. Vasan said. “If you don’t have transportation, you can’t get to doctors appointments to get routine screening done.”

On Thursday, Queens Councilmember Lynn Schulman — who chairs the Health Committee — will introduce legislation setting benchmarks over five years to make sure the initiative is meeting its goals.

“‘HealthyNYC’ marks a significant step forward in our commitment to the well-being of all New Yorkers,” said Schulman. “I am proud to partner with Mayor Adams on such a comprehensive and ambitious plan to make New York City the healthiest city in the country.”

The city won $4 million through three lawsuits against Daniel Ohebshalom, or Daniel Shalom, and his business affiliates, Adams announced on Thursday.

The Office of Special Enforcement netted $1.1 million from one of those lawsuits, according to the city, for outstanding fines regarding “tenant harassment and illegal short-term rentals” in Ohebshalom owned buildings in Hell’s Kitchen and midtown.

Three buildings on West 36th Street and West 46th Street earned about 100 violations in 2019 after OSE officials responded to the residences for reports of illegal hotel activities. In its lawsuit, the city claimed Ohebshalom brought in roughly $300,000 in revenue after converting several rent-stabilized units into illegal rentals.

On top of that, the buildings suffered from neglect and left residents living in unsafe conditions. Investigators had found fire damage, unsafe wiring, broken floors, large cracks in walls, among others concerns.

Attorney information for Ohebshalom was not immediately known.

A tenant living in one of the Hell’s Kitchen buildings told Gothamist about the alleged harassment from building managers and intruders gaining access through unlocked doors.

“It’s like a horror movie. Literally Hollywood could rent it out as a horror movie,” Marc Kessler said. “This is not a secret. Hell, we are not quiet about it.”

The outlet reports Ohebshalom’s managing agent took the top spot in last year’s “Worst Landlord List” published by the public advocate.

Last week’s settlement follows to lawsuits from the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development that brought in $3 million for ignoring court orders and racking up 650 housing code violations on just two properties in Washington Heights.

The city said tenants in the West 170th Street buildings recently went without heat and hot water for a week.

“Our administration has a clear message to those who harass tenants: You are breaking the law, and we will hold you accountable,” Adams said in a statement. “We can and will go after landlords who neglect dilapidated housing conditions and deprive New Yorkers of much-needed homes by permitting illegal short-term rentals to proliferate.

The Siena College poll released Tuesday morning showed that 57% of voters support sending more military and economic aid to Israel, compared to 51% who said the same for Ukraine.

On a related note, half of all responders believe Israel should do everything they can to get back the hostages taken by Hamas, but said Israeli attacks in Gaza will mostly hurt innocent Palestinian civilians more than anyone else, the poll found. A third of those polled said Israel should do whatever it takes to ensure that the attacks carried out by Hamas never happen again — regardless of casualties in Gaza.

“Democrats support more aid for Ukraine two-to-one, as do a plurality of independents, but a majority of Republicans oppose it,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg.

The poll also covered topics closer to home, including the issue that has proven to be top-of-mind for many New York voters: the migrant crisis that has been ongoing since summer of 2022.

Across all voters — Democrats, Republicans and independents of all races, genders and religions from upstate and downstate alike — the migrant crisis in the state is considered a serious or very serious problem that needs to be addressed.

“Seldom do we see an issue where at least 79% of Democrats, Republicans, independents, men, women, upstaters, downstaters, Blacks, whites, Latinos, Catholics, Jews, and Protestants all agree – that the migrant influx is a serious problem,” Greenberg said.

The vast majority — a 35-point margin — of voters in the poll conducted Oct. 15-19 believed the state must do something to slow the flow of asylum seekers rather than simply take them all in, Siena found. While it has long been something many Republicans in the state have called for, the poll showed that more than two-thirds of independents and more than half of Democrats felt similarly.

When it comes to the handling of the crisis, voters polled did not have rave remarks for how NYC Mayor Eric Adams, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, or President Joe Biden have done so far. Of them all, Adams fared the best, with 46% disapproving of what he has done, as opposed to just 30% who approve.

Hochul fared slightly worse, with more than half disapproving, compared to the 37% who approve. Biden did not get good reviews, with nearly two-thirds of New York voters not approving of how he’s handled the issue.

“While a plurality of New Yorkers do not approve of the job Adams is doing to address the influx of migrants, a 58-32% majority of New Yorkers – including a narrow plurality of Democrats – agree with Adams’ statement that ‘this issue will destroy New York City,'” said Greenberg.

A majority of responders (59%) said crime in the state has gotten worse over the last year, while just 9% believed it had gotten better.

The study had an overall margin of error of +/- 3.4 percentage points, the college said.

The mayor told reporters about the robocalls on Monday and said they’ve gone out in languages such as Mandarin and Yiddish to promote city hiring events. They haven’t included any disclosure that he only speaks English or that the calls were generated using AI.

“People stop me on the street all the time and say, ‘I didn’t know you speak Mandarin, you know?'” said Adams, a Democrat. “The robocalls that we’re using, we’re using different languages to speak directly to the diversity of New Yorkers.”

The calls come as regulators struggle to get a handle on how best to ethically and legally navigate the use of artificial intelligence, where deepfake videos or audio can make it appear that anyone anywhere is doing anything a person on the other side of a computer screen wants them to do.

In New York, the watchdog group Surveillance Technology Oversight Project slammed Adams’ robocalls as an unethical use of artificial intelligence that is misleading to city residents.

“The mayor is making deep fakes of himself,” said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the organization. “This is deeply unethical, especially on the taxpayer’s dime. Using AI to convince New Yorkers that he speaks languages that he doesn’t is outright Orwellian. Yes, we need announcements in all of New Yorkers’ native languages, but the deep fakes are just a creepy vanity project.”

The growing use of artificial intelligence and deepfakes, especially in politics and election misinformation, has prompted calls and moves toward greater regulation from government and major media companies.

Google was the first big tech company to say it would impose new labels on deceptive AI-generated political advertisements that could fake a candidate’s voice or actions for election misinformation. Facebook and Instagram parent Meta doesn’t have a rule specific to AI-generated political ads but has a policy restricting “faked, manipulated or transformed” audio and imagery used for misinformation.

A bipartisan bill in the U.S. Senate would ban “materially deceptive” deepfakes relating to federal candidates, with exceptions for parody and satire. This month, two Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to the heads of Meta and X, formally known as Twitter, to express concerns about AI-generated political ads on their social media platforms.

In recent weeks, a number of technology companies have shown off AI tools that can synthetically dub a person’s speech in another language in a way that makes it sounds as if that person is speaking in that language.

In September, the music streaming service Spotify introduced an AI feature to translate a podcast into multiple languages in the podcaster’s voice. More recently, the startup ElevenLabs in October introduced a voice translation tool that it said “can convert spoken content to another language in minutes, while preserving the voice of the original speaker.”

Adams defended himself against ethical questions about his use of artificial intelligence, saying his office is trying to reach New Yorkers through the languages they speak.

“I got one thing: I’ve got to run the city, and I have to be able to speak to people in the languages that they understand, and I’m happy to do so,” he said. “And so, to all, all I can say is a ‘ni hao.'”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday that he is limiting shelter stays for migrant families with children to 60 days, bidding to ease pressure on a city housing system overwhelmed by a large influx of asylum seekers over the past year.

The Democrat’s office said it will begin sending 60-day notices to migrant families who live in shelters, though they could reapply for housing if they are unable to find a new place to live. The city also will provide “intensified casework services” to help families secure housing, according to a news release.

It’s the mayor’s latest attempt to provide relief to the city’s shelter system and finances as it grapples with more than 120,000 international migrants who have come to New York, many without housing or the legal ability to work. More than 60,000 migrants currently live in city shelters, according to his office.

Adams has estimated the city will spend $12 billion over the next three years to handle the influx, setting up large-scale emergency shelters, renting out hotels and providing various government services for migrants.

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The mayor last month limited adult migrants to just 30 days in city-run facilities amid overcrowding. Adams is also seeking to suspend a unique legal agreement that requires New York City to provide emergency housing to homeless people. No other major U.S. city has such a requirement.

“With over 64,100 asylum seekers still in the city’s care, and thousands more migrants arriving every week, expanding this policy to all asylum seekers in our care is the only way to help migrants take the next steps on their journeys,” Adams said in a statement.

Recently Adams took a four-day trip through Latin America, starting in Mexico, where he sought to discourage people from coming to New York by telling them the city’s shelter system is at capacity and that its resources are overwhelmed.

The city’s efforts to rid the five boroughs of rats by containerizing sidewalk trash is expanding once again, and this time residential building owners are being brought into the fold.

Mayor Eric Adams revealed on Wednesday a new plan to put trash in containers at 95% of residential properties throughout New York City.

The hope is that this latest trash initiative will get trash bags off of city streets and reduce rat activity. City leaders say these new residential rules, in addition to the ones regulating business trash, will have an estimated 70% of New York’s trash going into bins.

“Less than one year ago, Mayor Adams stood in front of City Hall and declared war on the rats, war on the bags and war on the idea that other cities could get their trash off of the streets but that New York City could not. Since then, we have made sweeping progress in ending the primacy of the black trash bags,” DSNY Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Wednesday.

Starting next fall, buildings with nine or fewer units will be required to place all trash in secure containers. By 2026, however, the container must be official bins approved by the city.

According to Tisch and Adams, the city is in the early stages of selecting a vendor to design and produce a bin for optimal “rat resistance” and will be compatible with DSNY trucks.

“The uniform design of the new bins means that they can be tipped mechanically into the back of collection trucks, and DSNY will retrofit or replace hundreds of trucks to move past the days of throwing the bags by hand,” Tisch explained.

The commissioner said the city-approved bins should last 10 years and will cost roughly $50, “far less than anything available in retail stores.”

The new trash policy comes on the heels of last month’s announcement by Adams: the use of mandatory hard-lidded trash bins for all businesses. That initiative will start March 2024, and businesses could face a $50 fine if caught in violation of the rules after an initial one-month grace period.

He spoke during a visit to Necocli, the northern Colombia town where thousands of migrants start the perilous trek across the roadless Darien jungle into Panama, as they head for the U.S.

Speaking from a dock where migrants take boats toward the jungle, Adams said countries in the region need to “come together” to find solutions to the immigration crisis being felt across the Americas as well as in cities in the United States, including New York.

He called on the U.S goverment to find pathways for migrants and asylum seekers to work legally in the United States.

“When you look at Colombia they have really shown how to absorb individuals into their societies, and one of the most important ways to do it is to allow people to work,” Adams told reporters in Necocli. “Nothing is more humane and, nothing is more American than your right to work, and we believe that is a right we should extend.”

New York City has struggled to provide emergency accommodation to tens of thousands of migrants who have arrived in the city this year, with Adams and other city leaders calling on the federal government to speed up work authorizations for those who are already in the city.

A unique rule dating from the 1980s requires New York to provide shelter to anyone in need. Adams has said the cost of supporting migrants could climb to $12 billion in the following three years, and this week challenged the statute that obliges the city to provide migrants with shelter.

The mayor also went to Ecuador and Mexico during his whistlestop tour, where he visited shelters for migrants and spoke to local legislators.

After stopping in Mexico’s Puebla state, Adams said his city is “at capacity.”

“Our hearts are endless, but our resources are not,” Adams told reporters. “We don’t want to put people in congregate shelters. We don’t want people to think they will be employed.”

In Colombia, Adams said his goal is not to tell migrants what they should do, but to learn about their motives and find solutions to the immigration crisis.

The South American country has received 2.8 million migrants from Venezuela over the past seven years, and enabled them to apply for 10-year work permits that also give them access health and education services.

But despite the effort to regularize Venezuelan migrants, many are heading to the United States after struggling to rebuild their lives in Colombia and other South American countries, where economies are still recovering from the pandemic.

According to Panama’s National Immigration Service, more than 200,000 Venezuelans crossed the Darien Gap this year on their way to the United States. Many are moving for the second or third time, after living in South American countries like Colombia, Chile and Peru.

This week the Biden administration struck a deal with Venezuela’s socialist government to resume direct deportations flights to Venezuela and said that Venezuelans who do not qualify for ayslum will be returned to their homeland.

In Necocli, some Venezuelan migrants headed north said they would persist in their trek to reach the U.S. border despite the new policy.

“Getting in (the U.S.) is also a matter of luck,” said Miguel Ruben Camacaro, a Venezuelan migrant travelling with his two children and slept on a tent at Necocli’s beach. “We will chase the dream, until there are no other options.”

New York City is challenging a unique legal agreement that requires it to provide emergency housing to anyone who asks for it, as the city’s shelter system strains under a large influx of international migrants who have arrived since last year.

The city filed a request late Tuesday asking a court to allow it to suspend the requirement when there is a state of emergency where the shelter population of single adults increases at a rapid rate.

The filing came as Mayor Eric Adams embarks on a four-day trip through Latin America, starting Wednesday in Mexico, where he said he will discourage people from coming to New York, telling them the city’s shelter system is at capacity and its resources are overwhelmed.

The city has been moving to suspend the so called right to shelter for months under the surge of migrants, arguing the requirement was never intended to be applied to a humanitarian crisis such as the latest influx.

The shelter requirement has been in place for more than four decades in New York City, following a legal agreement struck in 1981 that required the city to provide temporary housing for every homeless person. No other big city in America has such a requirement.

“With more than 122,700 asylum seekers having come through our intake system since the spring of 2022, and projected costs of over $12 billion for three years, it is abundantly clear that the status quo cannot continue,” Adams, a Democrat, said in a statement. “New York City cannot continue to do this alone.”

Adams had heralded the shelter requirement at the start of the crisis as a display of the city’s empathy toward asylum seekers. In the months since, his rhetoric has hardened as the city has spent more than a billion dollars to rent space in hotels, erect large emergency shelters and provide government services for migrants who arrive without housing or jobs.

“This issue will destroy New York City,” Adams said last month.

The mayor has also recently tightened New York shelter rules by limiting adult migrants to just 30 days in city-run facilities amid overcrowding.

Josh Goldfein, a staff attorney at The Legal Aid Society, said the city’s request, if successful, would be disastrous for the city.

“What is the alternative? If we do not have a right to shelter, if we are turning people away from the shelter system, if people are now living in the streets, in the subways, in the parks, is that the outcome that they want?” he said. “That is something we have not seen in decades. I don’t think any New Yorker wants to see that. I don’t think city officials want to see that but that will be the result if they were to prevail here.”

As part of the four-day trip, Adams will travel to the Darién Gap — a lush, mountainous region connecting Central and South America along the Panama-Colombia border that also features about 50 miles of marshland — during the first weekend of October, City Hall sources told NBC New York. Given the extreme topography, it is one of the most perilous parts of the journey for asylum seekers, as they are required to hike, swim and trudge through parts of thick jungle on dangerous paths.

City Hall aides tell News 4 Adams’ upcoming trip is — in part — designed to examine what they describe as a misinformation pipeline that encourages migrants to continue crossing the border despite limited legal work opportunities in the U.S. and housing capacity in New York.

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First, the mayor will depart for Mexico City on Wednesday and attend an international business conference the next morning, where City Hall said he will speak with “local and national leaders to learn more about the issues at the southern border” and the impacts on NYC. He will also visit Puebla Mexico, where city officials say a majority of NYC’s Mexican immigrants start their journey.

From there, Adams also plans to stop in Quito, Ecuador, where he will meet with local community organizations and asylee integration programs to discuss how the migrants are passing through Ecuador and what is being done to stop them.

The mayor will then go to Bogotá, Colombia, on Saturday and then head to the Darién Gap. Adams will return to the city on Sunday.

The local authorities have said the influx of homeless, jobless newcomers is unsustainable.

Speaking in New York Wednesday, the Republican Abbott agreed it was “unsustainable,” but said he’s not the person most to blame.

“The lead importer of migrants to New York is not Texas, it’s Joe Biden,” he said at a breakfast event held by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. Abbot said he began the busing program in response to the plight of the small border towns in his state who do not have the resources to deal with border crossers.

“It’s a crisis. It’s chaotic and it must stop,” he said, urging the president to enforce laws he said gives the White House authority to “repel” migrants at the border.

“Until that time comes,” Abbott said, “Texas is going to continue to use every tool that we can to secure the border the best that we can.”

Those steps have included placing buoys — a “floating border wall” — in the Rio Grande to make it even harder to cross the turbulent river, where many migrants, including children, have drowned. Razor wire has also been uncoiled along the border. And the state has paid for many buses to transport migrants to New York and other big cities run by Democrats.

By Abbott’s count, Texas has given bus tickets to about 42,000 to start new lives elsewhere — with 15,800 sent to New York City since the spring of 2022. Many thousands more people, though, have gone to the northeast U.S. on their own, or been sent by social service organizations or municipalities.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has also been critical of the federal government, saying it hasn’t done enough to help with the cost of absorbing the wave of nearly 120,000 — and counting — that have arrived in the city. But his spokesperson on Wednesday also blamed Abbott.

“New Yorkers deserve better than being trapped between a vicious game of political hot potato,” said Kayla Mamelak. “So let’s stick to the facts: When thousands of asylum seekers arrived at Governor Abbott’s doorstep in pursuit of the American Dream, he chose to use them as political pawns.”

Abbott said unlike New York, which sometimes has advance notice of bus arrivals, his state gets no such warning. “What is going on in New York is calm and organized compared to the real chaos of what we see on the border,” he said, adding that New York is seeing only a fraction of the multitudes Texas has had to deal with over the years.

Last week, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre again accused Abbott of turning the border crisis “into a political stunt.”

She said the White House has given the city $140 million in aid — though the city wants more. Last week, Biden’s administration gave hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers ffrom Venezuela temporary protected status, which would expedite their ability to legally work in the United States.

Other U.S. cities have also dealt with an influx of migrants trying to escape poverty, violence or oppression in their home nations.

In San Diego, the county’s board of supervisors declared border crossings by asylum seekers an “urgent humanitarian crisis” and pleaded with the White House for more aid.

Since Sept. 13, U.S. authorities have been dropping off migrants at transit centers in San Diego and the suburbs of El Cajon and Oceanside. “Migrants are being released across the county with little direction and few resources,” the county statement said, calling on the federal government to limit releases or provide more financial support.

San Diego, like other border cities, is generally only a temporary home for asylum-seekers, who fan out across the country to join other migrants, family and friends.

On Wednesday, the International Organization for Migration appealed to Mexico and Central America to help address the “unprecedented numbers of vulnerable migrants transit through the region,” adding that long-term solutions are needed to solve the underlying problems that drive people from their own countries.

A judge on Tuesday gave the city one week to submit its motion in writing in court. Lawyers for the homeless are frustrated that after weeks of negotiations with the judge and state, Mayor Eric Adams is still trying to eliminate what they say is a critical right.

“It doesn’t make sense right this moment for the city to ask to be relieved of its obligation to protect people from dying on the streets of New York,” Josh Goldfein, a Legal Aid Society lawyer, said.

The Legal Aid Society expressed concern Tuesday after emerging from the latest closed door meeting with State Supreme Court Judge Erika Edwards on the right to shelter.

Judge Edwards announced that despite productive negotiations, the city still plans to move ahead in its quest to limit the right to shelter. Legal Aid questioned the move given all the new help coming the city’s way from the state and federal government, including the opening of Floyd Bennett Field and plans to get more migrants working.

“To live independently in exactly the way that the mayor asked and yet just as that plan is getting rolling, we’ve learned today that the city plans to ask for permission to make a motion anyway to be relieved of the right to shelter in some way,” Goldfein said.

“We currently have more than 60,000 migrants in our care and an average of 10,000 more still arriving every month seeking asylum, but the Callahan decree was never intended to apply to the circumstances our city is currently experiencing. As we continue to seek a national solution to this national crisis, we know the status quo is not working for longtime unhoused New Yorkers or for asylum seekers,” a spokesperson for Adams said.

The news came hours after a different judge on Staten Island said there is no right to shelter in New York and no emergency that necessitates housing migrants in an empty school building in the borough.

“The decision on Staten Island is wrong on the law and the facts,” Goldfein said.

Even though Staten Island’s Judge Wayne Ozzi ruled there is no right to shelter in New York, and that may be what Adams ultimately wants, Ozzi was asked to rule on the legality of housing migrants in the school building.

The right to shelter case was before Judge Edwards in Manhattan, who on Tuesday recused herself from the cast citing the potential appearance of conflict of interest without any details.

The sources tell NBC New York that based on their conversations, they believe the Biden team might have offered New York City more relief, if not for their concerns that the right-to-shelter policy provides a never-ending incentive for migrants to continue coming across the border.

“That’s why they’re reluctant,” said one State official.

Two New Yorkers who requested anonymity because they were describing private conversations say White House staffers have noted that cities like Los Angeles and Denver have only a couple thousand migrants while New York City has almost 60,000.

The White House denies that concerns about the right-to-shelter have impacted federal aid to New York City in any way.

“Any assertion that the Administration will not help the city or state of New York unless the right to shelter law is repealed or modified is patently inaccurate and ignores the whole-of-government efforts currently helping the city and state,” said White House spokesman Seth Schuster in a statement.

The City, State and the Legal Aid society are in discussions before a State Supreme Court Justice, after Mayor Eric Adams asked the court to consider reopening a four-decade-old right to shelter settlement to give him more flexibility.

The Biden administration cites reasons why they have not implemented the “fixes” the city and state are requesting.

For instance, the mayor has asked for the president to declare a state of emergency, which could unlock additional funding, but federal officials say under the Stafford Act, an emergency declaration is limited to disaster situations like hurricanes or wildfires.

Gov. Katy Hochul has said the Department of Homeland Security could circumvent the minimum six month wait to become eligible for work permits by granting Temporary Protected Status to migrants from certain countries, like Venezuela. But federal officials say that pathway to work would not necessarily be shorter, because asylum seekers would still need to apply for TPS and be processed.

Donors furious about Biden’s handling of crisis

Some Biden fundraisers and big donors say the president should expect an earful when he arrives in New York next week. The president will be attending the UN General Assembly and holding four fundraisers, including a “Biden on Broadway” event.

Several local Democratic sources involved in fundraising for Biden confirmed the migrant issue is impacting donations. 

“You are correct,” one said. “Some people decided to send a message that New York has been stiff-armed.”

A different fundraiser, who is involved in hosting a “lawyers for Biden” event next Wednesday, says the event is struggling to bring in money. “This issue is a major, major problem for bundlers and donors who are attempting to make the third quarter look positive.”

The fundraisers say the Biden campaign is aware of the criticism and even provided event organizers a list of talking points titled “Campaign talkers on migrants,” intended to assuage the donor concerns.  Among the points: that President Biden inherited a broken system, that he is working collaboratively with his New York partners, and that it’s Congress that needs to act.

The Biden Campaign did not provide a comment in response to our request.

The Biden administration has been trying hard in recent days to project the message that they are delivering much needed help to the city. They announced plans Tuesday to send 50 staffers to New York City for asylum application help and senior Biden aide Tom Perez was back in town Thursday to meet with business leaders.

Some big donors unhappy about the migrant situation in their hometown say they do not want to hurt Biden or help Donald Trump, but are using their money as leverage.

“This is a real thing,” said one prominent New York public relations executive who represents several wealthy Democratic donors. “It is a criticism the president should be ready to hear and be ready with an answer when he comes to New York.”

Read the full White House Statement here:

Since the first day of his Administration, President Biden has called on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. Without Congressional action, this Administration has been working to build a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system and we’ve led the largest expansion of lawful pathways for immigration in decades. The federal government is working to provide information and services to ensure that those who are eligible submit their work permit applications immediately.

The Biden-Harris Administration has sent more than a million emails and text messages to hundreds of thousands of migrants who may be eligible for a work permit, to remind them of their eligibility to apply. These messages were sent out in multiple languages, including Spanish, Haitian Creole, and Ukrainian. Additionally, in September, 50 federal personnel will deploy to New York to educate people on the immigration system and how to apply for work permits. We are also distributing Employment Authorization Document flyers directly to migrants and to local and state governments, non-profits, and other stakeholders to distribute further. These flyers include a QR code for migrants to access the EAD application instantly.

At the request of the city and state, the National Park Service and local officials are finalizing a lease for portions of Floyd Bennett Field, this will serve as one of the largest shelter spaces available to the city. The Federal government has provided the City and State of New York more than $140 million in federal funding this Fiscal Year and we have requested an additional $600 million for the Shelter and Services Program in our Supplemental request. We continue to call on Congress to fulfil that request and provide communities across the country the support they need.

Any assertion that the Administration will not help the city or state of New York unless the right to shelter law is repealed or modified is patently inaccurate, and ignores the whole-of-government efforts currently helping the city and state manage recently arrived migrants.

New York City’s onetime top building-safety official was arrested Wednesday on charges that he accepted cash, baseball tickets, a painting, a discounted luxury apartment and other bribes from at least five associates, repaying them with political favors and access to high-ranking officials, including Mayor Eric Adams.

Former Buildings Commissioner Eric Ulrich and six co-defendants were arraigned on conspiracy charges related to a series of bribery schemes. Each of the defendants pleaded not guilty during a shared arraignment in Manhattan criminal court on Wednesday afternoon.

Besides serving as Adams’ buildings chief, Ulrich, 38, was a city councilman and senior adviser to the first-term mayor.

In each of those roles, Ulrich “took advantage of his taxpayer-funded positions to line his own pockets,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said during a press conference. He collected an estimated $150,000 in gifts and cash over a two-year period, much of which he spent on gambling at legal and illegal casinos, according to prosecutors.

Bragg and Adams are Democrats. Ulrich, who raised money for Adams’ campaign, is a Republican.

Ulrich resigned from his post as city buildings commissioner last November, six months after his appointment, amid reports that he was being questioned by prosecutors as part of an investigation into illegal gambling and organized crime.

He was named Wednesday in five separate indictments. They allege that Ulrich used his position to dole out favors to his associates and secure them access to top officials, including the mayor.

Shortly after his election, Adams met with Ulrich and two brothers, Anthony and Joseph Livreri, inside a Queens lounge, according to one indictment.

The Livreri brothers are among those now charged with bribing Ulrich. Prosecutors say they and a towing magnate, Michael Mazzio, gave Ulrich cash — which he used partly to fund wagers at public casinos and under-the-table gambling clubs — and premium Mets tickets valued at nearly $10,000.

Ulrich helped the brothers speed up inspections and permits for a pizzeria and bakery, according to prosecutors. They said he also helped Mazzio try to secure exclusive towing contracts with the city and got Mazzio’s daughter a city Correction Department job.

When the pizzeria was shut down by the health department, Ulrich made multiple phone calls to top Adams staffers to arrange a reinspection, describing the establishment as “the Mayor’s favorite restaurant,” according to court papers. The following day, Ulrich allegedly requested a $300 cash payment from Joseph Livreri.

The mayor has not been accused of wrongdoing. In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Adams, Charles Lutvak, said the mayor “has not received any requests from the Manhattan DA surrounding this matter and has never spoken to Mr. Ulrich about this investigation.”

“We always expect all our employees to adhere to the strictest ethical guidelines,” the statement continued.

The investigation also concerned Ulrich’s relationship with a Brooklyn real estate developer, Kevin Caller. Prosecutors said Caller rented a luxury apartment — complete with furniture and a free parking space — to the buildings commissioner at a reduced price in exchange for political favors.

Among them: trying to get a zoning change that suited Caller’s plans for a Queens property and prompting an inspection of a low-income apartment building next door, in hopes that it would be ordered vacated, according to prosecutors.

Caller’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said his client rented an apartment to Ulrich at market rate and never requested anything in return.

An attorney for Ulrich, Sam Braverman, said his client unequivocally denied the charges.

“When thousands of phone calls and documents are cherry-picked and cut into small bits, and then viewed with eyes biased towards guilt, anyone can be made to look bad,” he said.

One of the phone calls in question picked up Ulrich, then the buildings commissioner, speaking in code with Paul Grego, a filing representative for the agency who was seeking preferential treatment for his clients, according to prosecutors.

In exchange for those favors, Grego allegedly traded Ulrich a painting by Francisco Poblet, the last surviving apprentice to Salvador Dalí. During a call alerting Ulrich that the artwork was ready, Grego used a coded reference to a painting “that your daughter did,” prosecutors said.

“It’s a picture of, um, Salvador Dalí,” he continued.

Ulrich joined the Adams administration in January 2022, initially as a senior advisor, before taking over the buildings agency — a department that enforces building codes, issues permits and responds to structural emergencies in a city with more than a million buildings.

Previously, Ulrich represented a Queens district in the City Council, first winning his seat in a special election in 2009.

Steven Attanasso is facing new felony hate crime and weapon charges in connection to a string of incidents at the Ebbets Field Apartments where, for so long, the investigation into his actions had been stalled.

Police arrested the 67-year-old Crown Heights man Thursday night on a hate crime charge of making terroristic threats against his Black neighbors, according to a high-ranking NYPD source. But Attanasso has been arrested and set free repeatedly in the past, even after he was suspected of setting a fatal fire in the apartment building.

His neighbors want to know if this time he will remain behind bars. Many say the blood curdling screams caught on camera at all hours of the night were the least of the harassment they experienced.

“We just want him to go. However he goes,” Beverly Newsome, a tenants association president, said.

For more than a year, neighbors have been documenting Attanasso waving knives around the hall, slamming their doors with a hammer and spewing racial slurs.

“He’ll scream ‘Ahhh, f— you n—–s, I’m gonna kill you,’” said a neighbor named Raquel. 

A year of calls to 911 about Attanasso’s alleged threats and violent behavior produced no long-term relief for the Crown Heights tenants, despite some arrests and trips to a psychiatric hospital. Each time, Attanasso was released.

His neighbors were shocked in April when nothing changed after Attanasso, they said, threatened to burn his Black neighbors.

“Black people, we’re gonna burn you. Right now you’re really brown, when we get done with you you’ll be black,” he was caught saying on tape.

Three days later, a suspicious fire was set in the hallway that killed 66-year-old veteran Roderick Coley. The NYPD has said Attanasso is their only suspect in the fatal arson investigation, but no charged were filed until well after the first I-Team report.

When police officers went to arrest the 67-year-old man, he was carrying a long kitchen knife on the street, the source told News 4. Attanasso already faces other weapons charges, but has repeatedly failed to show up to court hearing.

Neighbors who have been living in hear say there never seem to be any consequences.

“I’m not holding my breath because is this gonna be like it was the last time, he went in for a couple hours and then comes back out?” Beverly asked.

The building’s tenants say there are frustrated that the more serious fatal arson investigation remains stalled.

Law enforcement sources say the charges Attanasso faces are serious and could result in jail time if he is convicted. They say he is unlikely to be held on bail. A spokesperson for the Legal Aid Society, which was assigned to represent Attanasso, declined to comment.

The mayor’s comments came during a town hall in which he offered an ominous assessment of the ongoing migrant crisis.

“I don’t see an ending to this. This issue will destroy New York City, destroy New York City,” Adams said Wednesday night. “Month after month I stood up and said this is gonna come to a neighborhood near you. Well, we’re here. We’re getting no support on this national crisis and we’re receiving no support.”

The next day, faith and community leaders delivered a show up support for the migrants on Staten Island, which has become a recent gathering point for boisterous opposition.

“Many Staten Islanders are saying yes to compassion in our backyards, yes to shelters for asylum seekers in our borough,” one speaker said.

Protestors sought to drown out clergy, who noted many of the people in opposition are the children of immigrants themselves.

“We don’t even know who’s living in here. And if they would have did it right and they would have came here legally, we would know and we would have different feelings towards it,” one protestor said.

The city is housing migrants at St. John Villa Academy at the foot of the Verrazano Bridge amid strong community opposition.

“Staten Island is saying send them out to Manhattan, Manhattan is saying send them out to Queens, Queens is saying send them out to Brooklyn,” Adams said amid his Wednesday remarks.

Faith leaders at the Thursday rally said this is a crisis the city can get through.

“This is not the first crises that New Yorkers have faced. We are, for goodness sake, New Yorkers. This will not be the last crisis that we face if we’ve made it through the pandemic. We can make it through this crisis,” Rev. Dr. Demetrius S. Carolina said.

Adams projects the migrant crisis will create a $12 billion budget gap, with the city supporting 110,000 asylum seekers and counting.

Under the new rules, Adams said, mosques will not need a special permit to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer, or adhan, on Fridays and at sundown during the holy month of Ramadan. Friday is the traditional Islamic holy day, and Muslims break their fast at sunset during Ramadan.

The police department’s community affairs bureau will work with mosques to communicate the new guidelines and ensure that devices used to broadcast the adhan are set to appropriate decibel levels, Adams said.

“For too long, there has been a feeling that our communities were not allowed to amplify their calls to prayer,” Adams said. “Today, we are cutting red tape and saying clearly that mosques and houses of worship are free to amplify their call to prayer on Fridays and during Ramadan without a permit necessary.”

Flanked by Muslim leaders at a City Hall news conference, Adams said Muslim New Yorkers “will not live in the shadows of the American dream while I am the mayor of the city of New York.”

The adhan is a familiar sound in majority-Muslim countries but is heard less frequently in the United States.

Officials in Minneapolis made news last year when they moved to allow mosques to broadcast the adhan publicly.

The adhan declares that God is great and proclaims the Prophet Muhammad as his messenger. It exhorts men — women are not required — to go to the closest mosque five times a day for prayer, which is one of the Five Pillars of Islam.

Somaia Ferozi, principal of the Ideal Islamic School in Queens, said New York City’s new rules send a positive message to her students.

“Our children are reminded of who they are when they hear the adhan,” said Ferozi, who attended Adams’ news conference. “Having that echo in a New York City neighborhood will make them feel part of a community that acknowledges them.”

Adams, a Democrat, enjoys close relationships with faith leaders from various traditions and has promoted the role of religion in public life.

He has at times alarmed civil libertarians by saying he doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state.

“State is the body. Church is the heart,” Adams said at an interfaith breakfast earlier this year. “You take the heart out of the body, the body dies.”

A spokesperson for the mayor said at the time that Adams merely meant that faith guides his actions.

Known as the King of Calypso, a press release from the mayor’s office described him as a “singular, multigenerational, international cultural trailblazer.”

In addition to his unparalleled impact on music, film and television, he also played a major role in the March on Washington in 1963. He personally invited members of the Hollywood elite to march alongside Martin Luther King Jr in his fight for civil rights. Furthermore, he organized the recording of charity single ‘We Are the World’ for African famine relief, and served as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.

Belafonte is one of only 24 people in history to win an EGOT: a collection of awards made up of an Emmy, Grammy, Tony and honorary Oscar. He is also the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1989, and the National Medal of Arts in 1994.

He balanced artistry and activism with a voice that pushed through racial boundaries and transcended the confines of the recording studio.

Other individuals honored with the Key to the City include Broadway Musician Andrew Lloyd Weber, rappers LL Cool K and Nicki Minaj, talk show host Regis Philbin, designer Ralph Lauren, and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

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The history of giving the Key to the City of New York goes back to 1702, when “Freedom of the City” was awarded to the then governor of New York and New Jersey. Over time, it has evolved into a symbol of the city’s wish that a guest feels free to come and go at will.

Adams sought to perform a delicate balancing act between appealing to Israel’s supporters at home and angering fellow Democrats for meeting a prime minister embroiled in controversy over a planned overhaul of the country’s judiciary.

Adams’ entourage flooded the narrow streets of Jerusalem’s Old City as he headed first to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected, before visiting the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray.

Adams said that he visited the wall to show “respect for the rich culture, faith and belief that surrounds this amazing, amazing country.”

Adams’ three-day trip comes as Israel is deeply polarized over the Netanyahu government’s proposed changes to Israel’s judiciary, a plan that has triggered months of mass protests. Critics say the plan, which seeks to weaken the country’s Supreme Court and transfer more powers to the parliament, will push the country toward autocratic rule. Supporters say Israel’s unelected judges wield too much power.

Adams met with Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Tuesday, but sidestepped commenting publicly on the overhaul.

“The people of Israel will make the determination on how they want to move forward,” said Adams, “I have lots of challenges in my city, and I wouldn’t want someone to come in and interfere with how I’m running things.”

Brad Lander, New York City’s comptroller and its highest elected Jewish official, said he hoped Adams would seek out voices beyond Netanyahu’s.

“With Israeli democracy in peril, the Mayor cannot only listen to the person doing the most to undermine it. I hope he’s also meeting with some of the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have been out every week protesting Netanyahu’s judicial coup,” he said.

The mayor’s team said Adams met with leaders of the protest movement, but that meeting was closed to the media and his office did not specify with whom he met.

It was also unclear whether Adams would visit the occupied West Bank, where the combustible mix of armed Palestinians carrying out shooting attacks and near-nightly — and often deadly — raids by the Israeli army to arrest militants has fueled the worst fighting in the West Bank in nearly two decades.

Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox and ultranationalist coalition has advanced West Bank settlement construction that is deemed illegal under international law. Adams met with Israel Ganz, a settler leader, who said the mayor showed “great interest” in Jewish settlement growth.

Adams said he did not broach the subject with Netanyahu: “That’s not why I’m here.”

Instead, Adams said his focus was strengthening ties with Israel and combatting antisemitism. Antisemitic attacks in New York increased by 39% from 2021 to 2022, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Meeting with the mayor, Netanyahu called Adams a “great friend to Israel.” The Prime Minister’s Office said they discussed collaboration between New York and Israel in technology and tourism.

New York City is home to the largest Jewish community outside Israel, and visiting the country is seen as a rite of passage for the city’s mayors. Every mayor has visited Israel since it became an independent state in 1948.

Adams, 62, enjoys a close relationship with New York’s ultra-Orthodox community — a voting base which helped him secure the mayoralty. New York City’s second Black mayor, Adams was a police captain before he entered politics. He has staked out center-left political ground since taking office last year.

He’s advocated for a strong police department, cultivated support from labor unions and promised a business-friendly City Hall while acting as a cheerleader for the city’s nightlife scene after the shutdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent months, his administration has struggled to house tens of thousands of international migrants who have come to the city after crossing the southern U.S. border.

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Adams left New York on Sunday night sharing a video on social media of him boarding a plane.

In the video, Adams called Israel “a real partner of course in the region.” The mayor said he plans to meet with government officials and strength relationships with the country’s government.

A post on Monday morning showed him on the ground in Jerusalem taking photos with children.

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The proposal, suggested in an Aug. 9 letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration, came as New York struggles to handle the estimated 100,000 migrants who have arrived in the city since last year after crossing the southern U.S. border.

The city is legally obligated to find shelter for anyone needing it. With homeless shelters full, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has taken over hotels, put cots in recreational centers and school gyms and created temporary housing in huge tents.

The letter, written by a senior counsel for the city’s law department, identifies several other sites in which migrants could potentially be housed, including the defunct Metropolitan Correctional Center, which closed in 2021.

That shutdown came after the detention center, whose prisoners have included Mafia don John Gotti, associates of Osama bin Laden and the Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, came under new scrutiny because of squalid conditions and security lapses exposed following Epstein’s death.

Lawyers had long complained that the jail was filthy, infested with bugs and rodents, and plagued by water and sewage leaks so bad they had led to structural issues.

The letter didn’t make clear whether the city had actually approached the federal Bureau of Prisons about getting access to the jail as residential housing for migrants. As asylum seekers, the migrants are not prisoners and are mostly in the U.S. legally while their asylum applications are pending, leaving them generally free to travel.

In a statement, the federal Bureau of Prisons said “While we decline to comment concerning governmental correspondence, we can provide; MCC New York is closed, at least temporarily, and long-term plans for MCC New York have not been finalized.”

At least one advocacy group assailed the idea of housing migrants at the jail.

“Mayor Adams likes to say that all options are on the table when it comes to housing asylum seekers, but certain places should most definitely be off the table,” said Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition. “The Metropolitan Correctional Center was a notoriously decrepit jail, and is not a suitable place to support people trying to build a new life in a new country.”

The influx of migrants to the city has created some tension between the Hochul and Adams administrations. Lawyers for the two Democrats have sparred in court filings over how best to confront an issue that carries financial, political and humanitarian implications.

In a letter this week, an attorney representing Hochul sought to reject allegations that the state had not responded to the migrant influx in a substantial way, detailing steps the governor has taken while accusing the city of failing to accept state offers of assistance.

“The City has not made timely requests for regulatory changes, has not always promptly shared necessary information with the State, has not implemented programs in a timely manner, and has not consulted the State before taking certain actions,” the letter said.

Hochul’s attorney also noted the state has set aside $1.5 billion for the city to assist migrants and has advanced the city $250 million for the effort but said the city has only submitted reimbursement documents for just $138 million.

Avi Small, a spokesman for Hochul, said in a statement Thursday that “Governor Hochul is grateful to Mayor Adams and his team for their work to address this ongoing humanitarian crisis. Governor Hochul has deployed unprecedented resources to support the City’s efforts and will continue working closely with them to provide aid and support.”

The city, in its own filing, has suggested Hochul use executive orders or litigation to secure housing for migrants in upstate New York or to consider trying to get neighboring states to accept migrants.

Lawyers for the city are also requesting to use state-owned properties such as the Jacob K. Javitz Convention Center or State University of New York dormitories to house new arrivals, in addition to requesting the federal government allow them to use federal sites such as the Metropolitan Correctional Center jail and Fort Dix.

Adams’ office did not immediately return an emailed request for comment Thursday.

Notable events include Salt-N-Pepa discussing the role women have played in the hip-hop movement and special performances from KRS-One, Chuck D, Kool G Rap and Onyx.

“As the birthplace of hip-hop, New York City is proud to host these free block parties and events as a celebration of that spirit that started 50 years ago,” Mayor Adams said in a release.

Mayor Adams emphasized the role New York City played in the birth of hip-hop, which he shares was born from a back-to-school jam hosted by brother and sister Cindy and Clive Campbell in August 1973.

The 70s party hosted in the Bronx on Sedgwick Avenue spilled into the street — and hip-hop was born.

“Through the block parties and edutainment conversations with seminal artists, we are celebrating the core pillars of the culture — DJing, MCing, breaking, and graffiti,” said ITSALLBLACKMUSIC PRESENTS, “engaging intergenerational audiences in the greatest city on earth.”

As the birthplace of hip-hop, New York City will honor the genre’s cultural influence with citywide initiatives.

One of these initiatives includes a collaboration with LISA Project NYC to create 50 murals honoring the music and its impact across all five boroughs.

‘ITSALLBLACKMUSIC PRESENTS’ is an entertainment and education media platform that hosts live events dedicated to celebrating and amplifying the rich history of the Black experience. Through events, storytelling, and education, the company aims to explore the past, present, and future of influential genres of music and culture.

You can learn more about the block parties and how to RSVP here.

The state will reimburse the city for the cost of operating a tent city for adult migrants on Randalls Island, Adams said.

“As the number of asylum seekers in our care continues to grow by hundreds every day, stretching our system to its breaking point and beyond, it has become more and more of a Herculean effort to find enough beds every night,” Adams, a Democrat, said in a news release.

“We’re grateful to Governor Hochul and New York state for their partnership in opening this new humanitarian relief center and covering the costs, and we need more of the same from all levels of government,” said Adams, who has repeatedly asked the federal government to provide more financial support to efforts to shelter migrants in New York City.

The city has rented out hotels to house migrants and has placed people in locations including a cruise ship terminal and a former police academy building as tens of thousands of asylum seekers have arrived over the past year.

More than 57,200 asylum seekers are in the city’s care now, Adams said.

City officials announced a plan last month to house 1,000 migrants in the parking lot of a state psychiatric hospital in Queens.

More recently, city officials began last week to send migrants to recreation centers at two Brooklyn parks, McCarren and Sunset.

Officials set up a migrant center last October on Randalls Island, in the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, but then announced three weeks later that it would close the tent complex after the number of people being bused from southern border states diminished.

According to Mayor Eric Adams, the more than $485 million plan will double public safety efforts, invest in hardest-hit communities, support youth, and activate levels of city government to prioritize prevention-based public safety approaches.

The report builds on the city’s 18-month effort to reduce gun violence and culminates months of engagement with communities most affected by gun violence. More than 50 task force members, representing 20 city agencies, engaged approximately 1,500 community residents over the course of spring 2023 through community meetings and youth town halls.

“Public safety is not just a prerequisite, but the path to prosperity. It is what we have campaigned for and what we have delivered. Overall, crime has decreased citywide year-to-date, and our numbers continue to trend in the right direction. Public safety work is never done and even a single loss of life from gun violence is a tragedy,” said Mayor Adams. “Today, we are taking our efforts to end gun violence to the next level with this new ‘Plan for Community Safety.’”

The recommendations presented in the report represent a holistic approach to community safety, focusing on prevention and intervention strategies that use a public health and community development model to address the root causes of gun violence, according to the mayor.

To that end, the task force identified seven strategies in the report based on months of community engagement. These strategies encompass new and existing investments, totaling more than $485 million, to provide early interventions for youth, increase employment and entrepreneurship opportunities, improve housing security, facilitate access to public benefits, strengthen institutions communities, foster connections to mental health services, and strengthen police-community relations.

• Early Intervention: $118.3 million to increase early supports, including mentoring opportunities, for youth to prevent involvement in gun violence.
• Housing: $57.5 million to improve existing housing conditions, especially for public housing residents, and increase access to transitional, supportive, and permanent housing units.
• Navigation and Benefits: $67.8 million to help New Yorkers access the public benefits they deserve and better assist justice-related individuals and families navigating benefit programs.
• Community Vitality: $8.64 million to invest in public spaces, including parks, playgrounds, and community centers to make neighborhoods safer and more vibrant.
• Employment and Entrepreneurship: $118.5 million to focus on opportunities and skills training for young New Yorkers and those involved in justice to provide pathways to sustainable, well-paying jobs.
• Trauma-Informed Care: $106.66 million to bolster mental health resources for youth and others with a diagnosed mental illness, and ensure an appropriate crisis response for those experiencing mental health episodes.
• Police and Community Relations: $2.6 million to strengthen the bonds of trust between police and communities by enabling greater collaboration on neighborhood safety initiatives, ensuring more effective policing that balances the twin imperatives of security and justice .

An additional $1.5 million will go toward engagement and evaluation to build an infrastructure to measure progress on the above strategies. Ultimately, the state contributed $6 million to the general plan.

According to the report, approximately 92 percent of the city’s gun violence is concentrated in 30 police stations in the five boroughs. Six of these, representing 25 percent of shooting incidents and 39 percent of confirmed shootings citywide in 2022, are prioritized for the new and expanded investments recommended in the report. The six quarters are:

• Barracks 40: Port Morris, Mott Haven and Melrose.
• Barracks 42: Morrisania, Claremont and Crotona Park.
• Barracks 44: Grand Concourse, Bronx Terminal Market and Yankee Stadium.
• Barracks 47: Wakefield, Woodlawn, Baychester and Williamsbridge.
• Barracks 73: Brownsville and Ocean Hill.
• Barracks 75: Eastern New York and Cypress Hill

The city also benefits from the support of New York State and outside partners, including Everytown for Gun Safety and Trinity Wall Street. These resources will be used to strengthen the Crisis Management System, which deploys violence interrupters in communities most at risk of violence to reduce conflicts before they turn deadly.

After appointing a rat czar in April, Mayor Eric Adams announced his next target: trash from food-related businesses. Restaurants, supermarkets and bodegas will now be required to use containers for their trash in an effort to combat New York City’s rat problem.

Adams finalized a rule mandating that all food related businesses put their trash in secure containers. The administration detailed plans to expand the requirements for containerization to all chain businesses with five or more locations in the city.

“Today, we take giant steps towards [the goal of clean streets] by announcing new rules to containerize trash in our city that, once finalized, will cover 25 percent of businesses and result in 4 million pounds of trash getting disposed of in secure bins each day,” Adams said last month.

This new plan would affect bodegas, delis and grocery stores too. This rule will go into affect August 1, 2023.

Department of Sanitation Commissioner Tisch, in the announcement, noted that the black bags outside food-related businesses basically serve as “a to-go box” for rats. Deputy Mayor for Operations Meer Joshi hoped that the rule would be another step towards the end of “trash-bag mountains.”

“No one wants to see it, no one wants to smell it and we certainly don’t want rats to eat it,” Tisch said.

Under these two rules, businesses will have flexibility on the type and location of containers, provided they have a lid and secure sides. Containers can be stored either inside of the establishment or within three feet of the property line.

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Some restaurant owners hearing the news had concerns.

“Some of the restaurants have a lot of garbage. It’s at least seven containers they’re gonna be using,” said Basudeb Shaha, owner of Bombay Grill House on 9th Avenue.

Shaha says it will be difficult for some to store the bins when not in use, and the New York City hospitality alliance agrees.

Following the announcement, the alliance said it supports “containerizing trash, but as initially proposed, the Department of Sanitation’s mandate is impractical and creates big problems for small restaurants that will have to store big dirty garbage cans in their food preparation and customer seating areas or leave thousands of trash containers permanently strewn on sidewalks across the city.”

Still, the owner is willing to give the plan a shot, saying if it keeps rats at bay, it’s a good thing.

“This is a good idea because sometimes you put the plastic bag outside, mouse coming … this is nasty, I don’t like that way. This is a good idea,” Shaha said.

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The new emergency relief center at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Hospital in the Queens borough of New York will house adult men who are asylum seekers and will offer services including meals and medical care, the officials said.

“This center will provide not just a place to stay but also critical services to support these individuals on their journey,” Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol said at a City Hall news conference.

New York state will provide the space at the 300-acre Creedmoor facility and will reimburse the city for setting the migrant center up and staffing it, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom said.

There are currently more than 56,000 migrants in New York’s care, with more people arriving daily, officials said.

Mayor Eric Adams has scrambled to house migrants while asking for help from the federal government.

“New York City continues to receive thousands of asylum seekers each week, and we have stepped up and led the nation, but this national crisis should not fall on cities alone to navigate. We need a national solution here,” the mayor said in a statement.

Adams, a Democrat, announced last week that some adult asylum seekers without children in the city’s shelter system would be given 60 days notice to find other accommodations in order to make room for families with children. Dr. Ted Long, senior vice president of the city’s public hospital system, which oversees the migrant shelters, said Wednesday that about 100 migrants have been given notice so far.

Officials said the Creedmoor migrant center should be up and running at some point next month.

Over the past year, New York City has rented out hotels to house migrants, and has placed asylum seekers in locations including a cruise ship terminal and a former police academy building.

Ring cam video obtained by the I-Team shows the New York City mayor was accompanied by a member of his police detail and some tenants in the Ebbets Field Apartments on Monday afternoon when he visited apartment 11F.  That’s the home of Steven Attanasso, 67, who is the target of active criminal investigations by the NYPD and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.

“How long has he been here?” Adams asked a neighbor, as he stood outside Attanasso’s door. 

At one point, the member of the mayor’s NYPD detail peered into Attanasso’s peephole and called out “Hello?” 

Police say they suspect Attanasso set a fatal fire in the 11th floor hallway in April using his own foam mattress. The death of 66-year-old veteran Roderick Coley was caused by the fire, according to the medical examiner who deemed his death to be a homicide.   

Just days before the fire, Attanasso was on tape talking about burning his Black neighbors. But an I-Team investigation in June showed the arson investigation had stalled, and Attanasso remained in the building, leaving neighbors terrified of what might happen next. Neighbors say they have been subjected to Attanasso screaming, writing the N-word on his door, racist rants, pulling out knives, spitting and hitting their doors with hammers. 

The I-Team asked City Hall what Adams hoped to achieve with this visit and what he would have said had Attanasso opened the door.

The mayor’s spokesman, Fabien Levy, responded in an email: “The mayor knocked on the doors of a number of residents yesterday to hear directly from them about what they have been experiencing. He didn’t know whose door was whose…”

In the Ring video, Adams appeared aware that he was knocking on Attanasso’s door, turning to ask the neighbors additional questions about whether he had always been a problem neighbor, as they waited. Nobody answered. The video shows Attanasso left the apartment a few minutes before Adams came calling, and returned shortly after the mayor left.

Terrence Monahan, an NBC contributor and the former NYPD chief of department, said Mayor Adams was trying to send a message to the NYPD that he wants the issue resolved.

“It’s a tactic I know I used at times, where I’d go out there to take care of things and make sure it’s handled. And if everyone sees you doing it, they better get out and do it themselves,” Monahan said.

Some current and former law enforcement sources who declined to speak on the record because they did not want to anger Adams, say it is inappropriate for a mayor to attempt contact with a suspect, even if he’s an ex-cop. They cite that it violates the chain of command and puts an investigation at risk. 

“Does the mayor want the investigation to appear political, or to be required to take the witness stand?” one source asked.

Requests for comment about the mayor’s visit were not answered by the NYPD or the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.

Attanasso has not been charged in the alleged arson and his Legal Aid attorney has repeatedly declined to comment.

In recent weeks, tenants have been expressing frustration that a year of 9-1-1 calls about Attanasso produced no law enforcement nor mental health relief. 

A few weapons arrests and trips to the psychiatric ER were not enough to achieve their goal, which they say is for him to be either in jail or in a mental health facility where he can get help and they can feel safe.  After the fatal fire, that frustration intensified.  Residents asked why no hate crimes charges were pursued; why there had not been more effective coordination between police and the city’s mental health system.

“Mayor Adams, when do we get justice?” Raquel Harris asked during an interview in June. 

Adams traveled to the Crown Heights complex Monday afternoon, just a few hours after we told him during a Q&A session that residents wanted to hear from him directly.

The mayor is familiar with the buildings; Adams used to live in the Ebbets Field Apartments, his staff confirmed, and he talks about how he used to keep an office there. He also represented the community in the State Senate and as Brooklyn Borough president before becoming mayor.

But Adams also insisted the problems were out of his control, because he does not supervise the courts nor the psychiatric hospitals’ decisions to release people.

After meeting Adams Monday afternoon, Harris said she appreciated the mayor’s visit, adding that he gave her his phone number.

“It’s a first step,” she said. “I’m quite sure the mayor would not want to live like this. I respect the fact that he did come out and he does seem like he’s interested but let’s see what happens.”

Both Harris and Beverly Newsome, president of the Ebbets Field Tenants Association, say Adams has continued to communicate with them via text message since his visit, expressing his desire to find a solution.

“You can’t forget he used to be a cop. And knocking on peoples doors is what cops do,” said Newsome. “I’d be interested to know what would have happened had Steven answered the door. That would have been the movie to have.”

Since the I-Team story aired, the Brooklyn DA’s office said it would take a closer look at the case. Crime Stoppers posters were printed and put up in the building advertising a $3,500 reward for information on the fatal arson. And the DA and NYPD started exploring the possibility of elevating Attanasso’s alleged offenses to hate crimes, which come with additional penalties and give judges more power to jail a defendant.

The mayor’s unannounced visit to the Crown Heights complex — where he once lived — comes more than three weeks after the I-Team first exposed how a year of calls to 911 had failed to produce relief from Steven Attanasso’s racist rants, waving of knives, and threats to kill his Black neighbors.

“The residents there, I know very well,” Mayor Adams said at a news conference, responding directly for the first time to the I-Team’s questions about the situation. “It is a good, solid, working class community and I am going to stop over there.”

The NYPD says Attanasso, 67, is their only suspect in a fatal arson on April 6 that killed 66-year-old Roderick Coley, a Black veteran who also lived on the 11th floor. Police sources tell the I-Team they believe the foam mattress used to set the deadly fire in the 11th floor hallway belonged to Attanasso.

Just three days before the fire, a neighbor captured Attanasso on tape saying “Black people, we’re gonna burn you. You guys are really brown. When we’re done with you, you’ll be black!”

Raquel Harris says she was traumatized by the fire. Harris told the I-Team she witnessed Attanasso’s threats “to burn the N-words” and “make Black people blacker” and prayed for Mr. Coley when she saw responders trying to revive him.

After meeting with Adams outside her building on Monday, Harris said “I respect the fact that he did come out,” adding that the mayor promised to keep her posted.

“He gave me his number,” she said.

“It’s a horrific incident,” said Adams. “I believe this person should be inside until he gets the care that he needs and not harm someone.”

But Attanasso has not faced any charges in the arson case, which law enforcement sources admit was stalled until the I-Team investigation aired in June.

Attanasso’s Legal Aid attorney has repeatedly declined the I-Team’s requests for comment and several messages left at a phone number for Attanasso provided by an official building source were not returned.

Several times over the past year, after responding to 911 calls, police from the 71st Precinct brought Attanasso to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation and arrested him on knife-related weapons charges. But his neighbors complained that each time, he would quickly be sent home.

And without solid proof that he set the fire, the current misdemeanor weapons charges do not enable a judge to keep him behind bars nor set bail.

After the I-Team questioned why no hate crime charges had been pursued, which can elevate penalties in racially motivated crimes, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office said it had opened a separate new investigation into whether any of Attanasso’s lower-level alleged offenses could be prosecuted as hate crimes. The NYPD also announced in early July that its Hate Crimes Task Force had picked up this case.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, as part of her 2022 changes to the bail laws, restored judges’ ability to set bail in cases where a defendant is accused of a hate crime, according to her staff. The mayor and his staff have not responded to specific questions about why the NYPD did not do their part to seek hate crime charges.

“It’s clear this person is dealing with some mental health issues,” Adams said Monday.

Adams added the situation in the Ebbets Field Apartments is a classic example of the problems with New York’s mental health system that he has been trying to change. Specifically, Adams has argued that psychiatric hospitals are overly reluctant to keep someone involuntarily for more than 72 hours — which under state law, requires doctors to determine that the patient has a mental health diagnosis and presents a risk to themselves or others.

In a controversial push in 2022, Adams and Hochul worked to convince mental health providers that the “risk” in these cases does not have to be imminent to keep someone hospitalized longer.

“This should resonate with every New Yorker,” Adams said of the Ebbets Field situation. “This is what I said and we’re seeing over and over again why I was taking that position.”

But some critics have asked whether the NYPD explained Attanasso’s whole backstory to the psychiatric hospitals when they dropped him off, and suggested the Adams administration could have been more proactive by engaging the type of mobile mental health teams or community based social workers they use with the homeless.

“Police did arrests. They moved him to a facility. The doctors decide whether someone is released or not,” said Adams.

The mayor added that he would consult with his Health Commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, to see what the city did and whether more could have been done.

Since the fire, tenants say they have been terrified for their safety. They say they turned over multiple recordings of Attanasso’s threats to detectives and do not understand why the case seemed to get no attention for many weeks until the I-Team report.

MTA worker Cynthia Stephens, who has filed police reports about Attanasso, says the mayor’s visit was a step in the right direction.

“He listened to me and asked me questions,” Stephens said. “Him being here, it made us know that he is going to look into it now. He was even saying he would work with the DA.”

Anthony Armstrong said while he appreciates the mayor’s visit, he hopes it will produce results, not just good will and the appearance of taking action.

“He seems like a nice guy. I’d like to shake his hand and smell each other’s cologne. That’s cool. But we need action,” said Armstrong.

The show on WBLS 107.5 FM will air semi-regularly and feature news of the day, along with special guests and live call-ins from New Yorkers, according to a news release from the mayor’s office Thursday.

The first episode is scheduled to air Sunday, July 23, at 10:30 a.m.

Episodes of the radio show will be available after they air online.

“Every day, we are ‘Getting Stuff Done’ for working class New Yorkers, but so many working class New Yorkers are also doing so many wonderful things to move our city forward; this program will highlight all that and more as we hear directly from New Yorkers,” Mayor Adams in a statement.

Anyone hoping to chat with the New York City mayor can call 212-545-1075.

Adams’ move to radio is not a first for the city’s mayor. Many New Yorkers will remember Bill de Blasio’s weekly appearance on WNYC with Brian Lehrer.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams of the Southern District of New York said Rikers “has been in crisis for years” over several mayors’ administrations and leaders of the corrections system and he favors a court-appointed outside authority to take charge of the complex.

“But after eight years of trying every tool in the toolkit, we cannot wait any longer for substantial progress to materialize,” he said in a statement, adding that his office would seek to have a court-appointed receivership put in place.

In an email response, a spokesperson for City Hall said the administration’s efforts had been having a positive impact in some areas that a federal monitor had noted and questioned what had changed.

Williams said his office would pursue contempt proceedings against the city after a court-appointed monitor last week filed a report saying the city hadn’t met its obligations under a series of court orders pertaining to conditions inside Rikers.

In that report, the monitor said the “pace of reform has stagnated” and that jail officials had failed to report incidents of violence.

Another report earlier this month condemned conditions at jail facilities, citing mold- and vermin-infested areas among other issues.

In a hearing in June, U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain told attorneys for the city and Rikers detainees to formally discuss a potential structure for a federal receivership, and said she would consider it in August.

Advocates for those detained at Rikers have loudly called for a receivership, citing grim realities such as the deaths of 19 people last year, following 16 fatalities the year before. Six people have died so far this year.

The Legal Aid Society praised Williams’ decision to push for federal oversight saying in a statement, “Too many lives have been lost and damaged due to the city’s inability to manage the jails humanely. We look forward to working together to seek the relief necessary to end this culture of brutality.”

The indictment, announced by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, does not implicate Adams or other current city employees in the upended plot.

Rather, it describes a straw donor conspiracy orchestrated by people with business before the city who hoped to maximize their donations in exchange for political favors.

Among the defendants are a former NYPD commander who has known the mayor for decades and the owners of a construction safety business that’s currently working on a trash depot on Staten Island.

“We allege a deliberate scheme to game the system in a blatant attempt to gain power,” Bragg said in a statement. “The New York City Campaign Finance Board program is meant to support our democracy and amplify the voices of New York City voters. When the integrity of that program is corrupted, all New Yorkers suffer.”

Prosecutors said the effort to illegally structure donations was led by Dwayne Montgomery, a former NYPD inspector currently listed as the director of integrity for the Teamsters Local 237, which represents municipal workers.

Montgomery is accused of recruiting friends and relatives to take advantage of the city’s generous matching funds system, which provides an eight-to-one match for the first $250 donated by a city resident.

He allegedly orchestrated more than two dozens straw donations between 2020 and 2021, while also helping to organize fundraisers for Adams. It’s not clear how much money was ultimately steered to the campaign.

Evan Thies, a spokesperson for mayor’s campaign, acknowledged that Adams knew Montgomery “socially,” noting the two served in the NYPD together and later worked on criminal justice issues. However, he denied that the campaign had any knowledge of the scheme.

The indictment also names Shamsuddin Riza, Millicent Redick, and Ronald Peek as helping to organize the illegal donations. Yahya Mushtaq and Shahid Mushtaq, the leaders of EcoSafety Consultants, a construction company with active city contracts, are named as well.

Although New York’s campaign finance rules bar those with business before the city from donating more than $400, prosecutors say the defendants devised a scheme to donate to the campaign under the names of EcoSafety’s employees, without their knowledge.

“You could use a straw man,” Riza allegedly told Yahya Mushtaq during a phone call. “Whoever’s on the LLC or the incorporation, those are the people that do business with the city. Anybody else is an employee, the employees don’t fall under that criteria.”

Riza, who owns a construction company and was previously charged with falsifying business records, also allegedly indicated that he was hoping to secure work from the city.

“FYI ! This is the one I want , Safety , Drywall , and Security one project but we all can eat,” Riza wrote in a July 2021 email to Montgomery in which he sent along the information for a construction project called Vital Brooklyn, prosecutors allege.

A City Hall spokesperson said Adams never discussed city business with any of the defendants, though he said it was likely the mayor and Montgomery had spoken about other matters in passing.

All of the defendants face charges of conspiracy, attempted grand larceny, and making false statements.

Muhammad Ikhlas, a lawyer for Riza, said his client pleaded not guilty on Friday and was released on his own recognizance. He declined to discuss the case further.

Shahid Mushtaq pleaded not guilty and was released on his own recognizance. Yahya Mushtaq has yet to be arraigned. Scott Grauman, a lawyer for the Mushtaqs and Ecosafety Consultants, Inc., said they will “vigorously defend against these charges.”

Lawyers for the other defendants didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Thies, the campaign spokesperson, pledged to work with the campaign finance board and the district attorney as the case proceeds.

“The campaign always held itself to the highest standards and we would never tolerate these actions,” he said.

Adams has previously faced scrutiny over his fundraising practices. Earlier this year, he was fined $20,000 by the Campaign Finance Board for violating their rules on accepting donations from people with business before the city and failing to hand over paperwork in a timely manner.

Susan Lerner, the executive director of the watchdog group Common Cause New York, said it was too soon to know if Adams had acted improperly. But she said the indictment was evidence that the city’s public financing system was working as intended.

“The campaign finance system we have in New York City deliberately makes it harder for people who want to buy influence,” Lerner said. “The lesson here is do not try to game the system because you will be caught.”

An exchange between Adams and a woman at the Wednesday meeting in Washington Heights had garnered several million views by the next day. In it, the mayor fires back after pressed by the woman about his role in the Rent Guidelines Board’s move last month to raise rents.

“Why in New York City, where the real estate is controlling you, Mr. Mayor, why are we having these horrible rent increases this year and last?” she yelled at the mayor from across the gymnasium.

Adams, seemingly frustrated by the woman’s question, did not hold back in his response.

“First, if you’re gonna ask a question, don’t point at me and don’t be disrespectful to me. I’m the mayor of this city, and treat me with the respect that I deserve to be treated. I’m speaking to you as an adult,” he responded.

That reply gained him a bit of applause from people in the room, according to video recording of the town hall. Adams continued:

“Don’t stand in front like you treated someone that’s on the plantation that you own. Give me the respect I deserve, and engage in the conversation. Up here in Washington Heights, treat me with the same level of respect I treat you. So don’t be pointing at me, don’t be disrespectful to me, speak with me as an adult, because I’m a grown man. I walked into this room as a grown man, and I’m gonna walk out of this room as a grown man. I answered your question.”

The woman aiming to get the mayor to discuss housing affordability was later identified by several outlets as Jeanie Dubnau. Forward reports the 84-year-old is a known tenant activist and Holocaust survivor.

“This woman is Jeanie Dubnau, the Co-Founder of the Riverside Edgecombe Neighborhood Association (RENA), a tenants & housing rights advocacy organization in Upper Manhattan,” Juan Rosa, national director of civic engagement at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, tweeted.

Forward got in contact with Dubnau, who called Adams “an enemy of the tenants.”

“The fact of the matter is that he is a landlord himself,” she said. “He got millions from the real estate industry and he’s paying them back. He’s as corrupt as that.”

The Wednesday night exchange came on the heels of a new Siena poll reflecting a dip in the mayor’s favorability.

The group of New Yorkers polled mid-June were slightly less favorable opinion of Adams than the previous month. In May, 49% of those polled had a favorable opinion of the mayor; that’s down to 46%. His previous unfavorability number of 35% climbed to 39%.

Adams is certainly not the first NYC mayor to slip in favorability. His predecessors, Bill de Blasio particularly, faced waves of extreme criticism.

The Daily News, which reported out the poll, also noted the mayor’s dip in statewide support among Black voters. Half of the group polled last month had unfavorable view of Adams.

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