6 Donors To Eric Adams Charged In Campaign Finance Fraud Scheme: DA

NEW YORK CITY — Six donors to Eric Adams' 2021 mayoral campaign illegally drummed up funds in a scheme to garner influence over City Hall in the future, prosecutors said.

An indictment unveiled Friday in Manhattan court accuses the six of conspiring to run a straw donor scheme that unlawfully state generated matching funds.

The mayor himself isn't accused of wrongdoing, although the indictment released by District Attorney Alvin Bragg does contend that one conspirator said that he had been in some form of contact with Adams.

Adams "said he doesn't want to do anything if he doesn't get 25 Gs," the conspirator told another over the phone, according to the indictment.

A top Adams campaign official said in a statement that such a scheme would not have been tolerated.

"There is no indication that the campaign or the mayor is involved in this case or under investigation," spokesperson Evan Thies said in a statement.

The scheme, as outlined by prosecutors, used a state program that matched the first $250 donated by individuals with $2,000 in public funds.

Two relatives — Dwayne Montgomery, 64, and Shamsuddin Riza, 70 — skirted around maximum donation limits by lining up straw donors who would donate money for them, but in their own names, prosecutors said.

"You could use a straw man," Riza told another conspirator, according to the indictment.

The indictment states Montgomery and Riza roped more people into the scheme — Millicent Redick, 77; Ronald Peek, 65; Yahya Mushtaq, 28; and Shahid Mushtaq, 29.

The conspirators hoped to use their donations as leverage for future requests to the mayor's office, prosecutors said.

“We allege a deliberate scheme to game the system in a blatant attempt to gain power," Bragg said in a statement. "The indictment charges the defendants with subverting campaign finance laws by improperly structuring campaign contributions."

Montgomery is a former NYPD inspector who had testified with Adams in a federal stop-and-frisk trial, HellGate first reported. A spokesperson for Adams told the outlet that the mayor knows Montogomery "socially."

Riza was also indicted in connection to a separate construction corruption case in Manhattan.

Read the campaign finance indictment here.