Far behind in the latest polls, Mayor Eric Adams is once again suing the city Campaign Finance Board (CFB), the agency that keeps denying his requests for millions of dollars of public matching funds due to what it sees as his continuing failure to address its concerns about his questionable campaign fundraising tactics.
The new case, filed Friday in Brooklyn federal court, is the mayor’s second lawsuit against the board since May. The first case was dismissed July 11 by Brooklyn Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who declared the board was justified in denying the campaign’s fund requests over its continued failure to turn over documents the agency has been demanding since last fall regarding dubious donations tied to millions of dollars in public matching funds.
On Friday the new case was initially randomly assigned to Chief Judge Margo Brodie, but by day’s end Monday it was reassigned back to Judge Garaufis.
CFB officials declined to discuss the latest litigation. The board will next vote on matching fund requests in 10 days.
Exhibits attached to the new lawsuit and other court documents make clear that the CFB is aggressively pursuing its investigation of Adams’ 2021 and 2025 mayoral campaigns.
The campaign recently provided the CFB with a list of 31 individuals it claimed to have contacted regarding the board’s ongoing inquiry. Some of those on that list have been recently subpoenaed by the board as part of its investigation, according to sources familiar with the matter.
And last week the board revealed that Erden Arkan, a Brooklyn contractor with ties to the Turkish government who pleaded guilty to raising illegal straw donations for Adams, is cooperating with their investigation and audit of the 2021 and 2025 campaigns. The revelation surfaced as Arkan was sentenced to one-year probation and ordered to pay $18,000 in restitution — the amount of public matching funds triggered by the straw donations he choreographed.
Adams’ reelection campaign has requested more than $4 million in matching funds from the CFB but been repeatedly rebuffed, with the board citing extensive irregularities in his filings.
Both lawsuits against the CFB were filed by Abrams Fensterman, a firm long tied to the Kings County Democratic Committee that once employed Frank Carone, formerly the mayor’s chief of staff and currently serving as senior advisor to Adams’ reelection bid.
The second suit echoed parts of the first, arguing that the Trump Justice Department’s dismissal of Adams’ criminal case in April undercut the CFB’s denial of its request. The board had initially cited federal charges that the Adams campaign had illegally accepted millions of dollars in matching funds due to illegal “straw” donations.
“Simply put, the CFB’s overbroad application of its own rules makes the agency’s denial of public campaign matching funds to the Adams Campaign completely unlawful and indefensible,” the suit argues.
Judge Garaufis agreed with that part of Adams’ argument, ruling that mere allegations weren’t evidence of campaign finance fraud. But Garaufis nevertheless tossed the suit, embracing the other part of CFB’s defense, agreeing that Adams’ campaigns had failed repeatedly to provide the board investigators with the documentation they demanded.
No Communications from Adams
On Monday Todd Shapiro, Adams’ campaign spokesperson, did not address THE CITY’s question about the second lawsuit winding up before the same judge who shot down the first one. Instead, he insisted that the campaign has again filed suit “to ensure equal treatment under the law.”
“Mayor Adams has complied with all requirements, and there is no legal or factual basis to deny matching funds,” he stated. “Withholding them would violate both the letter and the spirit of the program, which was created to promote fairness and guarantee every New Yorker an equal voice in the democratic process.”
After Judge Garuafis dismissed Adams’ first suit, the campaign’s lawyer, Vito Pitta, provided the CFB with what he described as a “preliminary response” to their questions that consisted of a cache of text messages, almost exclusively between Brianna Suggs, the campaign’s chief fundraiser, and Rana Abassova, a mayoral aide and volunteer to the mayor’s 2021 campaign. In prior correspondence, Pitta had claimed no such communications could be found.
That “preliminary response” did not include any communications directly to or from Adams. Instead Pitta stated the mayor has in his possession evidence collected by the Manhattan federal prosecutors who brought the indictment against him, but claimed he is barred from releasing them under a protective order that remains in effect — even after the case against Adams was dismissed.
The indictment references several instances in which Adams is directly communicating with Suggs and Abbasova about specific fundraisers.
It also documents the mayor’s direct communications with Tolib Mansurov, a Brooklyn contractor with ties to the Uzbekistan government who has admitted participating in a straw donor scheme that raised $10,000 for Adams’ 2021 campaign. Mohammed Bahi, a mayoral aide who helped orchestrate those donations, pleaded guilty to conspiracy last week.
The campaign’s response also did not include communications requested by CFB from several other Adams’ campaign volunteers and mayoral aides, including his former liaison to the Asian community, Winnie Greco. In April, the board made a long list of demands related to fundraisers the CFB was investigating.
The campaign listed 31 individuals they’d contacted about the requested information, but claimed only “some” of those contacted had provided documents, others said they had no responsive records, still others did not respond to the campaign’s request. One declined to provide materials “on advice of counsel.”
“The Campaign’s response to the CFB’s requests is therefore incomplete,” Joseph Gallagher, the CFB’s general counsel wrote in his Aug. 7 response to the campaign. That response was part of a 16-page explanation for the board’s decision the previous day denying the campaign’s latest request for a public match.
The mayor’s battle to obtain a crucial cache of public matching funds comes as his campaign struggles to gain traction. In one poll released last month, Adams managed to poll below the Republican candidate, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, 9% to Sliwa’s 18%. Both are below frontrunner and Democratic nominee Zohran Mamadani (39%) and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (21%), with 13% undecided.