Adams ducks campaign finance woes, for now
Lawyers for the city Campaign Finance Board argued Wednesday that Mayor Adams’ inaugural committee should face hefty fines for accepting more than $15,000 in “prohibited donations” from individuals with business before the municipal government.
But the inaugural committee will avoid financial penalties — for now — after its lawyer Ardian Tagani persuaded the board’s chairman during a hearing to push back a vote on the matter to allow Adams’ team to submit additional information as part of its defense.
The chairman, Fredrick Schaefer, did not grant Tagani’s request without saying he considers the allegations “troubling,” though.
“We have done this on occasion before, accepting information at the eleventh hour. We don’t like to do it,” Schaefer said at the hearing held at the board’s offices in downtown Manhattan. “We have rules about this, and we really wish to see both candidates and [inaugural committees] abide . ... But this is a case of significance and of public interest that induces us to accept this late offer of information.”
The additional info includes 57 checks that Adams’ lawyers said the committee was not previously privy to.
As a result of the new details, a vote on the proposed penalties against the Adams committee will take place at another board meeting in the coming weeks, Schaefer said.
In addition to the “prohibited donations” allegation, Adams’ committee stands accused of failing to close down the fund once he became mayor, and dodging requests for documentation from the board. Lawyers for the board did not divulge the dollar figure of their proposed penalties at Wednesday’s hearing, but, between the three alleged violations, Adams’ committee could be fined tens of thousands of dollars, according to a source familiar with the matter.
At issue in the main allegation is $15,600 in donations that five individuals gave to Adams’ inaugural committee in the weeks after his November 2021 election, according to Campaign Finance Board lawyers.
Those five Adams donors are all listed in the city’s “Doing Business” database, which keeps tabs on individuals who bid on city contracts or otherwise engage in business with municipal agencies.
Individuals in that database are barred by law from donating money to mayoral inaugural committees, which are used by candidates for expenses after their election but before they’re sworn in. That law is meant to prevent “pay-to-play” politics in city government.
Tagani argued that “while prevention of actual or perceived corruption is an admirable goal,” the proceeds from the five donors in question “don’t rise to that level.”
The reason for that, he said, is that the Adams committee ultimately returned the $15,600 to those five donors, meaning the cash was “effectively never used.”
Campaign Finance Board general counsel Bethany Perskie pushed back on Tagani’s defense. She argued Adams’ committee should still be subject to penalties because it did not return the donations in question as quickly as the law requires upon being notified by the board.
Tagani blamed the reimbursement delay on a committee staffer in charge of donation refunds who was in the midst of separating from a partner at the time.