NEW YORK\u00a0\u2014\u00a0A 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 lucrative migrant shelter contract to a Queens hotel, according to a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Frank Carone\u2019s arrest Wednesday was the latest in a string of corruption allegations that have rocked the one-term mayor and his inner circle. And it came the same day federal authorities executed search warrants related to a separate bribery investigation involving high-ranking police officials under Adams, the latest sign that prosecutors are continuing to hone in on the previous administration.<\/p>\n
In the indictment, returned June 12, prosecutors accused Carone of leveraging his position as Adams\u2019 chief of staff to commit multiple acts of bribery, wire fraud and money laundering. His brother, Anthony Carone, as well as the Queens hotel owner, Yan Po Zhu, and Crystal Chen, an employee of the hotel, were also charged.<\/p>\n
They were expected to appear in federal court in Brooklyn on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said Carone accepted a series of bribes from Zhu and Chen in order to steer a multimillion dollar shelter contract to their hotel, which city officials had said was smaller than two other proposed hotels and could house fewer migrants. The contract was awarded amid an influx of migrants to New York that overwhelmed the city\u2019s homeless shelters.<\/p>\n
Frank Carone\u2019s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, called the new indictment \u201cnot worth the paper upon which it is printed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s indictment is a sad day for our criminal justice system,\u201d Aidala said in a statement. \u201cIt epitomizes the government first finding a target and then spending three years and enormous taxpayer resources to find a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frank Carone known for link to Sabrina Carpenter church controversy<\/p>\n
Carone, a longtime Brooklyn power broker, is widely credited as one of the architects of Adams\u2019 political rise. Among the wider public, he is perhaps most notorious for his role in an episode that led to a Brooklyn pastor being stripped of his duties partly for allowing pop star Sabrina Carpenter to film scenes for a provocative music video at his Roman Catholic church.<\/p>\n
The church was later subpoenaed by federal investigators seeking information about business dealings between Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello, who approved the video, and Carone.<\/p>\n
Adams himself was indicted on bribery charges in 2024 for allegedly accepting illegal campaign contributions from Turkish officials and others in exchange for political favors. The case was tossed by the Justice Department, which said it was distracting Adams from assisting in President Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown. Adams has denied wrongdoing but abandoned his campaign for a second term last year.<\/p>\n
The former mayor was not accused of wrongdoing in Carone\u2019s indictment.<\/p>\n
A lawyer for Zhu, Stephen Scaring, said the hotel owner \u201cwill be entering a plea of not guilty and is anxious to establish his innocence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chen\u2019s lawyer declined to comment. Messages were left for Anthony Carone\u2019s lawyer.<\/p>\n
Hotel at center of alleged bribery had been rejected by city<\/p>\n
In total, Frank Carone was paid around $120,000 by Zhu and Che for the emergency shelter contract, prosecutors said. The money was passed through a law firm owned by his brother, Anthony Carone, according to the indictment.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s Social Services Department had initially rejected the hotel\u2019s application to house migrants due to growing resistance to the high number of shelters already operating in the neighborhood, the indictment said.<\/p>\n
Carone then interceded on the hotel\u2019s behalf, prosecutors allege. In one text exchange in September 2022, Zhu wrote: \u201cThank you my big guy,\u201d according to the indictment.<\/p>\n
The Carones and Zhu socialized frequently and attended gatherings at Zhu\u2019s Long Island home, the indictment said.<\/p>\n
In a separate statement, Todd Shapiro, a spokesperson for Adams, said Frank Carone \u201cdedicated decades of his life to public service, the legal profession, and helping countless individuals, businesses, and charitable organizations throughout New York.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carone played a key role in Adams\u2019 campaign for mayor in 2021 and served as Adams\u2019 chief of staff in 2022. In 2023, he formed a political consulting firm. He also was a one-time lawyer for the Brooklyn Democratic Party.<\/p>\n
Separately Wednesday, federal agents searched the homes of current and former New York Police Department leaders as part of a bribery investigation that grew out of an inquiry into Jeffrey Maddrey, the chief of department under Adams, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the searches.<\/p>\n
As part of that inquiry, the FBI and the NYPD executed warrants on the home of NYPD Chief of Manhattan South James McCarthy and former Deputy Commissioner Tarik Sheppard, according to the person, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.<\/p>\n
Maddrey\u2019s home was also searched by federal agents, the person said.<\/p>\n
The searches were not related to the arrest of Frank Carone, according to another person familiar with the matter who also spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the case. There is no public indication of any arrests as part of those searches.<\/p>\n
Once the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the department, Maddrey resigned in late 2024 over allegations that he demanded sex from a subordinate in exchange for opportunities to earn extra pay.<\/p>\n
An inquiry to his attorney was not immediately returned. Attorney information for Sheppard and McCarthy was not immediately available.<\/p>\n
Collins, Offenhartz, Sisak and Richer write for the Associated Press. Collins reported from Hartford, Conn., and Richer reported from Washington. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK\u00a0\u2014\u00a0A chief of staff to former New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been charged with accepting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1912,106405,52066,106407,46804,46498,397,106408,91,9,24,55,54,56,17110,106406,29359,22274,23266,84233],"class_list":["post-276806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-adams","tag-carone","tag-chief","tag-crystal-chen","tag-exchange","tag-frank-carone","tag-indictment","tag-inquiry","tag-lawyer","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-prosecutor","tag-queens-hotel","tag-search-warrant","tag-staff","tag-wednesday","tag-zhu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276806","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=276806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}