New York City  , Mayor , Eric Adams ‘ , 2021 campaign provided records last month to address more than$ 2 million in financial discrepancies flagged in an audit of its operations, but his team also left a number of suspected violations unresolved, including a question about payments to two top aides, the , Daily News , has learned.
First , disclosed in August, the Campaign Finance Board’s review inspection of Adams ‘ 2021 procedure found his staff failed to properly file$ 2.3 million it spent during that year’s election cycle using common matching money.
The last step in the process before the committee said it would move to take action on fines was that accountancy fall, which was one of 22 categories of potential violations the CFB asked Adams ‘ team to address in a formal reaction.
In a reply dated , Nov. 29, obtained this week by the , Daily News , via a Freedom of Information Law request, Adams ‘ campaign wrote it had submitted reporting amendments and other information that would make most of the ,$ 2.3 million  , classify under the board’s records rules.
The records themselves weren’t released, as Adams ‘ campaign wrote it had submitted them in the CFB’s internal bookkeeping database, which isn’t subject to FOIL requests. A spreadsheet of transactions that the campaign claimed to have provided corrected information for, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in TV ad spending, was included in the campaign.
That spreadsheet did not, however, list two matching funds-bankrolled transactions the CFB’s original draft audit flagged as being improperly documented: A$ 35, 000 consulting payment to , Brianna Suggs, Adams ‘ longtime fundraiser, in , October 2021, and a$ 26, 000 wage payment to , Ingrid Lewis-Martin, his chief adviser, in , September 2021. Why the campaign didn’t provide additional documentation for those payments is unclear.
Both Lewis-Martin and Suggs have recently faced scrutiny from law enforcement.
Lewis-Martin resigned from her , City Hall , job this past Sunday and says she expects to be indicted on , unspecified corruption charges , this week by the , Manhattan , district attorney’s office. Suggs ‘ , Brooklyn , home was raided in , November 2023 , by federal authorities as part of the investigation into Turkish government ties that resulted in , Adams ‘ indictment , this September on corruption charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
The records obtained by the , Daily News  show that Adams ‘ campaign did not provide any explanations for the six categories of suspected violations raised by the CFB in the draft audit, aside from efforts to account for the$ 2.3 million in undocumented spending.
Those categories include findings by the CFB that the mayor’s team received tens of thousands of dollars in unreported “in-kind contributions” and “prohibited contributions” from corporate entities, the records show. According to the draft audit, Adams ‘ campaign didn’t charge anyone for hosting any fundraising events, which is where the majority of the flagged undisclosed in-kind contributions are.
Additionally, the documents reveal that Adams ‘ campaign did not respond to a finding that his team had not disclosed “intermediaries” for dozens of sets of donations to his 2021 run, totaling more than$ 206, 000. These included individuals who bundle contributions to political candidates.
Among those donation sets were several that have emerged in connection with Adams ‘ criminal case, including a grouping of 10 contributions made by employees of , KSK Construction, a , Brooklyn , company owned by Turkish nationals. Adams ‘ indictment makes reference to the KSK donations as one of his allegedly solicited from Turkish government employees for illegal contributions.
Additionally, the campaign wrote it “has no response at this time” to a seventh suspected violation category related to daily pre-election donation disclosures, and said it is still “working to resolve this issue” in response to an eighth category entitled” credits through , Dec. 31, 2023″.
Vito Pitta, Adams ‘ campaign attorney, didn’t comment about specifics in the draft audit response, but blamed the shortage of explanations on the mayor’s pending criminal case.
” Given the ongoing trial, the campaign was not able to respond to a number of findings”, he said in an email late Tuesday night. The campaign made a partial response in an effort to cooperate as closely as possible with the post-election audit and not thwart the process by requesting a second extension.
Adams ‘ campaign had planned to submit its audit response by July 1st, but it wasn’t until last month after getting multiple extensions.
Beyond referring to , the board’s penalty guidelines, and the board’s ability to levy fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars against campaigns that don’t respond or provide insufficient answers to draft audit reports, a CFB spokesman declined to comment on Tuesday.
The , Adams , campaign’s audit response comes at a politically delicate time for the mayor.
On Monday, the CFB , denied , Adams , nearly$ 4 million in public matching funds  , for his 2025 reelection run, citing” all available information”, including the mayor’s indictment, which alleges he solicited bribes and illegal donations for both his 2021 and 2025 campaigns, mostly from Turkish government operatives, in exchange for political favors.  , Adams , is expected to stand trial in April on those charges.
A suspected violation category Adams ‘ team did offer an explanation for in last month’s CFB response involved an expense topping$ 7, 000 the campaign incurred for car repairs at a , Brooklyn , shop, the records show. The CFB had questioned whether that was an appropriate campaign expense, and Adams ‘ team wrote the costs were “permissible” because they covered repairs on two rental cars , Adams , used on the 2021 campaign trail.
The campaign wrote that the vehicles were being used for campaign purposes, and that damage to the vehicles was caused by the length of each rental, exceeding what would normally occur during a short-term rental.
The response didn’t say what type of damage the cars sustained.
Joanna Zdanys, an , attorney , specializing in city campaign finance law and the deputy director of the elections and government program at the , Brennan Center for Justice, said penalties for intermediary reporting violations alone” can certainly add up” as the CFB assess fines for each undisclosed bundler.
According to Zdanys, campaigns that ignore suspected violations can increase fines.
She said,” The CFB does have a history of taking omissions from draft audit reports seriously.”
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