Mayor defends ex-con pal, notes own crime past
Having friends in low places isn’t something Mayor Adams views as a big problem.
Adams on Monday defended his friendship with a Manhattan restaurateur who pleaded guilty to federal money laundering charges — and cited his own arrest as a youth as his rationale for doing so.
“I don’t know if you know it, but I have a criminal history,” he said at a City Hall news briefing, responding to a question from the Daily News about his ties to Zhan “Johnny” Petrosyants. “I was arrested as a 15-year-old.”
“And the public said, ‘Eric, you turned your life around, and we want to vote for you as mayor,’ ” he continued. “You — all of you — know how I am about giving people an opportunity. I mentor people every day. You would be surprised at the types of people that I mentor to put them back on track.”
Adams’ comments come on the heels of a Politico NY report last week detailing his longstanding friendship with Petrosyants. In 2014, Petrosyants and his brother pleaded guilty to money laundering in connection with a medical billing scheme involving nofault insurance claims.
Johnny Petrosyants was sentenced to probation. His brother Robert was sentenced to six months in federal prison — and both of them were ordered to forfeit a total of more than $1.3 million.
Adams had his own trouble with the law as well, but he was much younger than the Petrosyants at the time.
When he was a teen, he was arrested for stealing a TV and a money order. Cops in the 103rd Precinct in Queens roughed up him and his brother after the arrest. Adams was later sent to a juvenile detention facility for a few days before trial and was sentenced to probation.
In recent weeks, he has regularly been spotted out with Johnny Petrosyants, a move that’s raised many eyebrows among the city’s political class. A source close to the mayor confirmed to The News that the two hang out every week, mainly at the NoHo nightclub Zero Bond and at Osteria La Baia, where Adams was recently spotting having dinner with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
A City Hall source also confirmed that Petrosyants is friends with Frank Carone, the mayor’s chief of staff.
Adams pushed back against the idea that felons should be “discarded forever” and said that kind of thinking most adversely impacts people of color. “In this day and time, when everyone is talking about bail reform, everyone is talking about prison reform, if you inherit the belief that because someone did something they should be discarded forever, that is going to impact predominantly Black and Brown young men — not acceptable,” he said. “I’m going to be there to sit down and mentor people.”
In an earlier press conference Monday at Kings County Hospital, Adams also said he considers socializing with Petrosyants and other personal pals a form of “therapy.”
“I go out more to socialize. I have a small group of friends that are not, they are not in politics,” said Adams. “I try to go out and socialize with them because it’s my therapy.”