Campaign finance officials could not verify the billing address of more than 200 credit card contributions Mayor Eric Adams’ re-election campaign has submitted for public matching funds, raising questions about the true source of many of his donations.
In its reviews of the campaign’s requests, the Campaign Finance Board deemed as invalid all 222 of these donations — including 25 where the credit card billing address differed from the donor’s stated residential address, an analysis by THE CITY finds. With the other 197 donations, the address on file with the credit card company did not match the billing address of the card used by the donor to make the donation.
That included four donations featured by THE CITY in a recent report detailing suspicious donations submitted by Adams campaign in the weeks after a federal judge dismissed his campaign finance fraud case at the behest of the Trump administration.
In its latest preliminary review of donations, obtained by THE CITY via a Freedom of Information Law request, CFB dubbed each of these claimed contributions invalid for a match.
Adams was indicted last September on charges that included using illegal straw donations, some from foreign sources, in his bid to drum up public matching funds in his 2021 and 2025 campaigns. Since December, the Campaign Finance Board has refused Adams’ requests for matching funds, citing the indictment and his track record of failing to adequately respond to its questions about hundreds of suspect donations.
Campaigns enrolled in the CFB’s program can seek matching funds of $8 for every $1 contributed by a New York City resident, up to $250. Donations from non-residents and people doing business with city government do not qualify for the match.
In Adams’ 2025 reelection bid, the board has found $202,000 of the $602,000 in donations he submitted to be invalid for public match through May 19, THE CITY found — one dollar out of every three. Those funds would have been worth $1.6 million in public matching dollars.
In its most recently completed “statement review,” the board deemed 28 of Adams’ 103 match claims submitted March 14 through May 19 to be preliminarily invalid, CFB records reveal. The “invalid” donations would generate another $50,000 in taxpayer-funded matching dollars for the campaign.
Included in that batch were four donations of $2,100 made in May that THE CITY flagged: an unemployed couple who said they didn’t make the donations submitted in their names, a home health aide whose contribution was made with a credit card whose billing address was her employer’s office, and another home health aide who used a card with a billing address different from the one he listed as his residence.
The latest CFB findings continue to undermine Adams’ claims for a public match windfall at a time when both Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo are outperforming him in the polls.
In response to THE CITY’s questions, Todd Shapiro, spokesperson for the Adams campaign, defended what he called the campaign’s “robust internal compliance procedures.”
“What this shows is that the system works. Anyone can make a donation online — and in a campaign with thousands of contributions coming in from across the city, there will inevitably be a small number that require closer scrutiny,” he wrote. “As soon as we receive preliminary flags from the Campaign Finance Board, we immediately begin a thorough review of the donations in question. If any contribution is found to be ineligible for matching or otherwise problematic, we take swift corrective action — including refunding the donation if necessary. That process is ongoing in the cases you referenced.”
The CFB requires campaigns to vet credit card donations submitted for matching claims to make sure the donor is using their own funds. The address verification system checks the address the credit card company has in its files against the billing address cited by the donor. If they don’t match, the donation is given a “FAIL” grade, which suggests the card used could be a business card rather than a personal one.
The system also checks to see if the billing address of the credit card used to make the donation matches the residential address provided by the donor to the CFB. If they don’t match, that could also suggest the true source of the funding is being masked via a “straw donation,” funneling larger amounts of money through small, local donors to qualify for matching funds.
CFB officials say if the campaign can provide evidence that the address verification failed because a donor had recently moved and had not updated their card’s address, the CFB would consider the matching claim valid.
Shadowed by a history of shoddy compliance with CFB’s demands, the Adams campaign nevertheless continues to seek matching funds, arguing that the CFB’s denial is no longer justified because the criminal case was dismissed. The Justice Department made no judgments regarding the merits of the campaign finance charges but contended the dismissal was necessary so Adams could assist their immigration deportation campaign.
In May, the mayor’s campaign sued the board, demanding that it release the requested funds. But a federal judge recently threw out the suit, citing the mayor’s continued non-compliance with the Campaign Finance Board’s demands for documents related to suspect donations.
The board released its most recent statement review to the campaign on June 2, demanding that Adams provide backup documentation to justify the request for matching funds for each of the contributions the board’s preliminary inquiry deemed were invalid. That could include a sworn “affirmation statement” by a donor that the contribution was made with their own money.
In response, Vito Pitta, the campaign’s lawyer, assured the board that regarding the invalid donations, the campaign has “made modifications to a number of transactions, has uploaded affirmation statements from contributors and has contacted contributors for additional documentation.”
As of Monday there was no indication in the CFB’s public database that any of the four suspect donations flagged by both the CFB and THE CITY have been refunded.