{"id":276765,"date":"2026-06-24T16:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T16:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/276765\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T16:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T16:20:10","slug":"top-aide-to-former-nyc-mayor-eric-adams-charged-in-alleged-migrant-shelter-bribery-scheme-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/276765\/","title":{"rendered":"Top aide to former NYC Mayor Eric Adams charged in alleged migrant shelter bribery scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (TNND) \u2014 The chief of staff to former New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been charged with accepting more than $100,000 in bribes “to steer a multimillion-dollar Emergency Shelter Contract” for migrants to a Queens hotel, according to an unsealed federal indictment.<\/a><\/p>\n

The indictment charges Frank Carone with bribery, wire fraud, money laundering and other crimes. Also charged are his brother, Anthony Carone; Queens hotel owner Yan Po Zhu; and Crystal Chen, an employee of the hotel.<\/p>\n

In 2022 and 2023, New York City “experienced an unprecedented influx of migrant asylum seekers” and received $1.8 billion in federal grant money to rent entire hotels for one year or more and use them as emergency shelters.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors allege that Frank Carone received about $120,000 from Zhu and Chen in exchange for helping secure the emergency shelter contract. According to the indictment, the payments were routed through a law firm owned by Anthony Carone.<\/p>\n

The city’s Department of Social Services had initially rejected the hotel’s application to house migrants because of growing resistance to the large number of shelters already operating in the neighborhood, the indictment says.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors allege Carone then intervened on the hotel’s behalf. In a September 2022 text exchange cited in the indictment, Zhu wrote: “Thank you my big guy.”<\/p>\n

Frank Carone’s attorney, Arthur Aidala, called the indictment “weak” and “based on purely circumstantial evidence that’s not worth the paper upon which it is printed.”<\/p>\n

“Today’s indictment is a sad day for our criminal justice system,” Aidala said in a statement. “It epitomizes the government first finding a target and then spending three years and enormous taxpayer resources to find a crime.”<\/p>\n

In a separate statement, Adams spokesperson Todd Shapiro said Frank Carone “dedicated decades of his life to public service, the legal profession, and helping countless individuals, businesses, and charitable organizations throughout New York.”<\/p>\n

“This is an ongoing legal matter and my prayers are with his family,” Shapiro said.<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear whether Anthony Carone, Zhu or Chen had attorneys who could respond to the allegations.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Editor’s note: The Associated Press contributed to this article. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (TNND) \u2014 The chief of staff to former New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-276765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}