United States: former NYC mayor Eric Adams' ex right-hand man charged over migrant-contract bribes

In New York, the 2022-2024 migrant crisis swallowed billions of dollars of public money on emergency shelter. Part of that windfall, according to federal prosecutors, is said to have taken a shortcut via the “commission” box. On 24 June 2026, Frank Carone, one of the oldest and closest allies of ex-mayor Eric Adams, pleaded not guilty before a federal court in Brooklyn, after being arrested that same morning.

The indictment, filed in the Eastern District of New York (EDNY), runs to thirteen counts. It accuses Frank Carone, Adams' former chief of staff at City Hall, of accepting $120,000 in bribes from the owner of a Long Island City hotel, Yan Po Zhu, and an employee, Crystal Chen, in exchange for lobbying city officials. The alleged aim: to have their establishment, the Microtel, awarded a nearly $7 million contract to house migrants. Three other people were charged: Zhu, Chen, and Carone's brother, Anthony Carone.

A hotel the city deemed unsuitable — and which landed the contract anyway

According to the prosecution's elements as reported by CNN and the Washington Post, city services are said to have repeatedly judged that the site did not fit: too many shelters already concentrated in the district, and an establishment too cramped for the needs. On paper, the Microtel's bid was therefore anything but obvious.

That, according to prosecutors, is precisely where the connections come in. Zhu and Chen, who had befriended Frank Carone, are said to have asked him to secure the contract regardless. The former chief of staff, who after his stint at City Hall became a well-connected consultant and lobbyist, is then said to have pulled his strings at the top of the city government to move the file along. The contract is said to have finally been signed — and the district, which already had many, inherited one more shelter.

At the time of the alleged facts, New York City was under extraordinary pressure: tens of thousands of asylum seekers were arriving each month, and the city was signing shelter contracts at a frantic pace, often without competitive bidding, in the name of the emergency. Ideal ground, anti-corruption NGOs regularly point out, for well-placed intermediaries to sell their influence.

$120,000, a brother and a law-firm account

The amount of the alleged bribes — $120,000 — is, against a seven-million-dollar contract, almost modest. It is the concealment mechanism that draws investigators' attention. According to the prosecution, the sums are said to have passed through Frank Carone's brother, Anthony, via a bank account tied to Frank Carone's law firm. In other words: the money is said not to have landed directly in the unofficial official's pocket, but to have taken a family and professional route meant to muddy the trail.

This kind of arrangement — interposing a relative, routing through a legitimate professional structure — is a classic of US corruption files, where federal prosecutors are fond of traceable transfers. It is often through the bank statements, more than the confessions, that these cases are made.

At the end of the first appearance, federal judge Marcia Henry set bail at levels revealing of the file's supposed hierarchy: $2 million for Frank Carone, $500,000 for his brother Anthony, $100,000 for Crystal Chen and $8 million for Yan Po Zhu. All were released on bail. All, at this stage, dispute the facts.

Who is Frank Carone

Frank Carone is no stranger to the New York microcosm. A Brooklyn lawyer and businessman, he was long one of the city's most influential political operators, close to the Kings County Democratic Party. When Eric Adams took over the mayoralty in early 2022, he appointed him chief of staff — one of the most powerful jobs at City Hall, at the hinge of politics and administration.

Carone left that post in late 2022, after less than a year, to return to the private sector as a consultant and lobbyist, while remaining an unofficial adviser to the mayor and a noted fundraiser. It is that middleman position — one foot in the private sector, an ear at City Hall — that is now at the heart of the accusation: that of having monetised a public contacts book to the benefit of private interests.

Eric Adams, the shadow of a mayor already caught by justice

The Carone affair does not, at this stage, target Eric Adams himself. But it lands in a loaded context. The ex-mayor had himself been the subject of a federal corruption indictment in 2024, in a separate file linked to alleged benefits received from Turkish interests. That case had a turbulent political fate before being dropped — an episode that fuelled intense debate over the independence of prosecutions.

The indictment of his former right-hand man reopens, by ricochet, the question of the governance culture that prevailed at City Hall during that period. Several Adams associates have, in recent years, seen their homes searched or their names named in inquiries. Federal prosecutors, for their part, seem to be methodically unwinding the threads of a single skein: that of the emergency contracts signed in a chain during the migrant crisis.

It must be stated plainly: Frank Carone, his brother, Yan Po Zhu and Crystal Chen are charged, not convicted. They enjoy the presumption of innocence, and Frank Carone explicitly pleaded not guilty. A federal indictment means a grand jury found there were sufficient charges for a trial — not that guilt is established.