Eric Adams Aide Sentenced In Campaign Fundraising Scheme — With The Mayor's Absence Noted

By Greg B. Smith, The City

Nov. 19, 2025

Most of the seats in the ornate wood-paneled courtroom of Manhattan Federal Judge Dale Ho Tuesday were filled with supporters of Mohamed Bahi, the former aide to Mayor Eric Adams who was about to be sentenced for arranging illegal straw donations for the mayor’s election campaigns.

Missing from the scene was Eric Adams, the man whose candidacy put Bahi in that courtroom awaiting his fate.

And Ho — the same judge who’d reluctantly dismissed Adams’ campaign finance fraud case at the request of the Trump Justice Department after Adams promised fealty to the administration — wasn’t about to let that go unnoticed.

“There’s a notable absence here of the person at the apex of the pyramid,” Ho remarked, making clear his belief that the guy at the top had managed to walk away while Bahi, a relatively low-level City Hall functionary, was the guy, as his defense lawyer put it, “left holding the bag.”

Adams was a couple of hours away from jetting off to Uzbekistan, a particularly rich coincidence. Bahi, once the mayor’s liaison to the Muslim community, had admitted that he’d orchestrated the straw donation scheme through an Uzbek contractor based in Brooklyn.

Despite the mayor’s absence, Adams was very much at the heart of the proceeding, in which Ho sentenced Bahi to three years' probation, including one year of home detention, and ordered him to pay $32,000 in restitution to the city Campaign Finance Board.

Bahi admitted that in December 2020 he convinced contractor Tolib Mansurov, a local leader in the Uzbek community who had ties to the Uzbekistan government, to pull together $10,000 worth of donations, which is well above the amount an individual can contribute. Mansurov and four of his employees gave $2,000 each, and the boss later reimbursed his staff.

Throughout the hearing, Ho repeatedly brought up the mayor, questioning how he should handle the fate of a mere aide involved in campaign finance fraud on Adams’s behalf when Adams himself walked away more or less unscathed, leaving Bahi the man in the middle.

“I know this is a hard question,” the judge said, addressing the prosecutor handling Bahi’s case. “What am I to make of a person above Mr. Bahi, the mayor, who had his indictment dismissed against him?”

A member of the audience quietly clapped his hands. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Sobelman dodged the question, instead stating that the case was only about Bahi’s personal actions.

Bahi’s defense attorney, Derek Adams, also made use of the mayor’s absence, noting that after his client had pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy earlier this year, the press kept asking “How do you feel that Adams’ charges were dismissed and you were left holding the bag?

Ho later quoted the lawyer, noting, “It’s hard to escape the notion that, as [defense attorney] Adams said, that Mr. Bahi was left here holding the bag.”

The judge also sought to take the case farther up the ladder, asking Bahi’s attorney “who’s the architect” of the straw donor scheme Bahi admitted to.

In a filing with court prior to sentencing, the lawyer described Bahi as somewhat naive about politics and ignorant of campaign finance laws that restrict how much contributors can give candidates. He claimed that another mayoral aide, Ahsan Chughtai, told him the mayor won’t show up at an event unless at least he could be promised $10,000 in donations.

After Bahi informed Mansurov of the minimum, the Uzbek contractor offered to write a $10,000 check himself. Bahi then asked Chughtai, who told him about the $2,000 per person limit. Chughtai, Bahi claims, then told him it would be okay for the contractor to reimburse his employees for their contributions.

Bahi’s lawyer said, “The instructions Mr. Bahi got came from Ahsan Chughtai. Whether it stopped with him or went to Mayor Adams, that’s not something Mr. Bahi knows.” Chughtai lost his job as the mayor’s liaison to the South Asian community and had his home raided by the FBI, but he was never charged with a crime.

Bahi also lost his job as a mayoral aide and, during his sentencing, said he worried that a jail sentence would prevent him from continuing charitable efforts to raise money for the needy that he’d devoted the last 15 years of his life to. He asked the judge for one year’s probation.

“I can’t undo the past, your honor, but I can choose the person I am going forward,” he stated. “It’s not incarceration, it’s not probation. It’s that leaving court today as a convicted felon — that hurts.”

The judge acknowledged Bahi’s case presented a “challenging sentence,” balancing what he said was Bahi’s “extraordinary record” of charitable service to his “very serious offense,” noting that the Adams campaign received public matching funds based on the illegal straw contributions arranged by Bahi.

“Straw donations like these are a serious offense,” he noted. “It may seem like it’s a victimless offense, but it’s not. The victim is the public.”

In the end, Bahi’s three-year probation sentence was a compromise of sorts. The probation department had recommended two years' probation, Bahi had requested one year probation, and the prosecution sought one year and a day of imprisonment.

Bahi is now the second casualty of the Adams campaign’s fundraising tactics. Erden Arkan, a Turkish businessman who pleaded guilty in a similar straw donor scheme, was sentenced to one year of probation by Ho.

But there are many others implicated in Adams’ fundraising who appear to have escaped a public display of their actions, starting with Adams.

In September 2024 Adams became the first New York City mayor in modern history to be indicted. He was charged with soliciting and accepting illegal straw donations as part of his effort to obtain what would ultimately be $10 million in public matching funds. The indictment alleged that he’d continued this scheme in his bid for re-election.

Mayor Eric Adams stands beside his lawyer outside Gracie Mansion after being indicted on federal corruption charges, Sept. 26, 2024. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

In February, soon after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Department of Justice moved to toss the charges, arguing that they inhibited the mayor’s ability to cooperate in the administration’s immigration crackdown. The then-acting Manhattan U.S. attorney and several prosecutors handling the case all resigned in protest, and the motion for dismissal was taken over by a top Justice Department lawyer who also happened to be one of President Trump’s personal attorneys.

In April, Ho agreed to dismiss the case “with prejudice,” meaning it can’t be reopened. But he made clear his feelings about the dubious nature of the transaction, writing, “Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions.”

As a result, the public did not get to hear the evidence against Adams assembled by prosecutors, the FBI and the city Department of Investigation. Former mayoral aide Rana Abasova and Adams’ campaign fundraiser, Brianna Suggs, both of whom featured prominently in the investigation, did not have to appear as witnesses and faced no charges themselves.

After the campaign finance investigation exploded into the headlines in November 2023 when FBI agents seized the mayor’s phones, word of a broader investigation began to spread.

Another mayoral aide, Winnie Greco, whom THE CITY had linked to other potential straw donor schemes, had her homes raided by the FBI and DOI in February 2024. She later resigned and remains under investigation by the Brooklyn U.S. attorney.

Meanwhile the mayor now goes about claiming his indictment was the result of the Biden administration’s “weaponizing” of the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office after he criticized their failure to get the U.S. border under control. The investigation actually began in September 2021, before Adams had even begun his tenure at City Hall.

On Tuesday his office announced yet another round of taxpayer-funded travel, this time with the mayor wrapping up his trip to Israel to jet off to Uzbekistan. There, his press office stated, the mayor will participate in a “multi-day trip to meet with government, business, tech, sports and religious leaders to discuss how New York City can partner with Uzbekistan to bring innovation, businesses, and jobs to the five boroughs.”

If that’s to happen on the mayor’s watch, however, it will have to happen quickly. Since he dropped out of the race in October, his tenure at City Hall now expires in just over six weeks.

This press release was produced by The City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.