A judge has set a tentative trial date for August in the federal corruption case of Frank V. Carone, a Brooklyn power broker who was indicted last week on bribery and money laundering charges.
It would be unusual for a trial to begin so soon after the announcement of charges, and the judge, Kiyo A. Matsumoto of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, acknowledged in a hearing on Wednesday that the date she ordered was likely to be pushed back.
Mr. Carone, a longtime aide to former Mayor Eric Adams of New York, and his brother, Anthony C. Carone, who was also charged last week, have indicated that they favor an earlier start for the trial.
A lawyer for Frank Carone, Andrew Goldstein, said they wanted a quick resolution to a federal case in which prosecutors had spent years “digging into every aspect of our client’s life.”
“We are going to push to keep the August trial date,” Mr. Goldstein told reporters outside the courthouse. “If it moves, we are going to push to keep it as soon as humanly possible.”
In charging papers unsealed last week, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn depicted the Carones as using the migrant crisis to their own benefit.
Frank Carone, while serving as chief of staff to Mr. Adams, steered an emergency shelter contract worth more than $6.8 million to a Queens developer, Yan Po Zhu, the indictment said. The scheme took hold in 2022, according to the indictment, as the city was struggling with its legal mandate to provide housing to more than 200,000 migrants who began arriving in New York.
In total, prosecutors said, Frank Carone received $120,000 in bribes from Mr. Zhu. In exchange, they said, the developer received the lucrative contract to house migrants at a Microtel Inn he owned in Long Island City, Queens. The payments were made through a law firm bank account controlled by Anthony Carone, prosecutors said, and they were used to pay off Frank Carone’s credit card charges for various personal expenses.
Mr. Zhu was also charged in the 13-count indictment, along with his business manager, Crystal Chen. Both have pleaded not guilty.
The government and defense must still resolve a number of issues before trial, making a late August start date unlikely. Sara Winik, a federal prosecutor, said on Wednesday that the government still needed to provide about a million pages in discovery material to the defendants.
Mr. Goldstein on Wednesday said the indictment lacked information that was commonly found in federal corruption indictments. Flanking him were Frank Carone, Arthur L. Aidala, another lawyer for Frank Carone, and Marc Agnifilo, a lawyer who has represented high-profile clients like Sean Combs and Luigi Mangione. Mr. Agnifilo declined to say whether he had joined Frank Carone’s defense team.
William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.