Investigative reporter @GuardianUS📱Signal: 929-486-4865 | Previously @THECITYNY @WNYC 📧👇🏾 “Each one says: ‘It will last my time and after me, the deluge!’”
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May 23 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
NEW INVESTIGATION:
How a developer bought her way into @NYCMayor Eric Adams’ inner circle then scored special treatment—per sources—and millions more in city dollars from his administration.
This is the story of how NYC is run under Mayor Adams🧵
theguardian.com/us-news/articl…2/ Since 2021, hotel developer Weihong Hu has bundled campaign cash for Adams and provided numerous benefits to his longtime confidantes.
NEW: We have identified 5 alleged straw donors to @NYCMayor’s reelection campaign, and the business leaders who donors said secretly reimbursed them—in violation of state law.
One is a hotel operator who housed a top Adams advisor now under investigation: theguardian.com/us-news/2024/f…2/ Two donors said that they—and in one case, a spouse as well—each donated $2,000 to Adams’ 2025 campaign at the behest of NYC hotel operator Xiaozhuang Ge + his family business partner, a woman named Lan Mei. In in-person interviews, they admitted that Ge + Mei reimbursed them:
Nov 8, 2023 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
SCOOP: @THECITYNY has found @NYCMayor accepted campaign $ from 3 members of a foundation incorporated by Turkish President Erdogan's son.
The FBI is probing whether the Adams campaign conspired with the Turkish govt to score illegal foreign contributions: thecity.nyc/2023/11/08/eri…2/ The FBI is probing whether Erdogan’s government used U.S. citizens as straw donors to mask foreign campaign $
1 of these Erdogan-linked donor’s address was listed as “Staten Island, NJ”—a non-existent place. Yet the Adams team used the donation to apply for public matching $
Oct 24, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
BREAKING: 2 @NYCMayor donors plead guilty to conspiracy charges. The DA says they fabricated campaign contributions to score extra public matching $ for Eric Adams
In 2021, regulators asked Adams’ team to explain these donations—but his team ignored them: thecity.nyc/2023/10/24/ada…2/ These aren’t the only troubling campaign donations that Eric Adams’ successful ‘21 mayoral campaign scored public matching funds with. Multiple NYC residents told @THECITYNY this August that someone forged donations in their names for the Adams campaign thecity.nyc/2023/08/18/eri…
Jul 13, 2023 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
🧵NEW—Meet the Ambalo bros
They pay distant “heirs” for fractional home deeds, evict tenants, then flip houses in NYC’s Black neighborhoods—sometimes for 10x what they paid
But we found signatures in their deed filings that notaries say they didn’t sign: thecity.nyc/2023/7/13/2379…2/ When a homeowner dies without a will, their relatives automatically inherit fractional shares of the property.
So these speculators pick off heirs—who are often out of state—to homes in NYC’s Black and Latino neighborhoods, where gentrification has exploded property values:
May 10, 2023 • 14 tweets • 6 min read
🧵 For 2 years, I reported on allegations of Mount Vernon police framing Black residents—based on secret police docs + a whistleblower’s tapes.
Now, @WestchesterDA@Mimirocah1 is moving to purge 26 convictions from a dubious drug operation I investigated: thecity.nyc/2023/5/10/2371…2/ When I started the series for @Gothamist, I didn’t know about the whistleblower Murashea Bovell’s trove of secret recordings of his fellow officers. I just knew that he had taped his supervisor appearing to refer to him as a “rat.”
A crew of real estate speculators—all with criminal histories—are finding out-of-state “heirs,” scooping up minority shares of houses in Black NYC neighborhoods + demanding longtime residents pay up—or face a forced home sale:
thecity.nyc/2023/4/17/2368…2/ @sssmaldo and I identified more than 50 properties, mostly in central Brooklyn, where these speculators have acquired fractional interests in recent years.
In NY, anyone, who has paid any small amount for any small % of a home, can ask a court to force a sale.
Nov 28, 2022 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
NEW: The Brooklyn Democratic Party appointed **at least 10** residents from Little Pakistan to critical party posts without their knowledge—sparking residents’ fears of more alleged fraud inside the county party.
thecity.nyc/2022/11/28/234…2/ The residents, nearly all from South Asian immigrant families, told us they had no idea how they ended up as Brooklyn Democratic Party County Committee reps—party delegates who *theoretically* vote on special election nominees + party rules, which determine who runs the party.
Jul 28, 2022 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
SCOOP: Bishop Whitehead—the Brooklyn pastor robbed at gunpoint of $1 million worth of jewelry mid-sermon—is facing a lawsuit for allegedly fleecing a 56 year-old congregant of $90,000, her entire life savings.
With @yoavgonen thecity.nyc/brooklyn/2022/…2/ After the alleged theft of her retirement money, the congregant Pauline Anderson attempted to communicate with Bishop Whitehead, per text messages cited in the lawsuit. His response, addressing her son: "The Devil is Using you however I Knew it was Coming!"
Mar 30, 2022 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
NEW: On Monday, Eric Adams received a letter demanding NYC block Wells Fargo from city bank contracts citing alleged discrimination against Black homeowners—hours later, the mayor was partying with the bank. So far, he hasn’t promised to do anything 👇🏾 thecity.nyc/2022/3/29/2300…
2/ Last year, Wells Fargo denied 52.6% of completed mortgage refinancing applications from Black NYC residents with conventional primary mortgages for single-family homes—a huge wealth accumulation opportunity missed: thecity.nyc/2022/3/29/2300…
Feb 10, 2022 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
NEW: We obtained internal numbers showing **when the general public was banned** from visiting Rikers Island during the pandemic, drugs kept getting in NYC jails: thecity.nyc/2022/2/9/22926…2/ In fact, drug seizures more than doubled during the initial 2020-21 pandemic lockdown in NYC jails: datawrapper.de/_/1uBSQ/
Sep 30, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
SCOOP: The names of multiple NYPD officers + NY GOP officials appear in a hacked cache of The Oath Keepers' secret membership records. The feds are currently investigating the right-wing militia group for its ties to the Jan. 6th Capitol Riot: gothamist.com/news/hack-oath…2/ One of names matches that of a veteran officer assigned to the NYPD's Firearms & Tactics Section. When @MicahLoewinger called the number linked to him in the hacked data, he acknowledged he was an NYPD officer, but declined to confirm his relationship with the militia group.
Aug 2, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
NEW: @BrooklynDA releases 10,000+ documents his office has complied on NYPD officers. They include findings of dishonesty, brutality + associations with suspected criminals. This is the largest such release for any prosecutor in NY history: gothamist.com/news/brooklyn-…2/ In many cases, these records reveal new details on past NYPD misconduct. 1 officer, who was disciplined for failing to disclose info during a murder investigation about a illegal gambling club operator he knew, was also later called out by a judge for dishonesty on the stand.
Jun 24, 2021 • 19 tweets • 7 min read
NEW: Civilian complaints have unique tags linking NYPD officers together. @mrejfox & I put tens of 1000s of those links into a network map, revealing tightly-knit police clusters which civilians have repeatedly accused of abuse: gothamist.com/news/mapping-c…2/ Most NYPD officers, who have ties to their colleagues through civilian complaints at all, only have a handful. But a small % had TONS of ties. The piece has an explorable map showing only cops who had at least 99 ties to colleagues (See article for our tie count methodology):
May 6, 2021 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
NEW: These two prosecutors resigned after a Queens judge found they wrongfully sent 3 Black men to prison for 20+ years.
Now a new group is going after their law licenses + those of 19 other current/former Queens prosecutors with histories of misconduct: gothamist.com/news/prosecuto…2/ The two prosecutors in that case failed to turn over evidence pointing to credible alternative murder suspects + made numerous false statements to the court. They were subsequently promoted by the DA. Neither were ever disciplined by the courts. See this thread for more:
George Bell spent 24 years in prison because Queens prosecutors withheld evidence tying other men to the murders he was accused of—@QueensDAKatz calls the prosecutors' conduct "inadvertent"+ does not plan to review their other cases. This is Bell's story: gothamist.com/news/he-spent-…
2/On Christmas eve in 1996, George Bell was just another 19 year old from Corona. By day, he folded clothes at Old Navy. By night, he pursued his real passion—DJing at local parties +going to shows to pass out his mixtapes. It was a golden age of hip hop in Queens. He wanted in.
Feb 17, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
NEW: For months, New Yorkers have awaited a flood of NYPD misconduct records, but so far they’ve only got data on civilian complaints. We obtained hundreds of secret NYPD misconduct findings + are making them public here: gothamist.com/news/staten-is…2/ The 800+ findings show relatively light penalties, like lost vacation days, routinely handed down even for the NYPD’s most consequential violations—false statements, excessive force, DWIs etc. (@lucapowellCUNY led the data analysis here)
Feb 16, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
SCOOP: After nearly 2 years of public records battle with @Gothamist/@WNYC, Queens prosecutors partially release their secret database on NYPD cops with criminal convictions + court findings of dubious testimony: gothamist.com/news/queens-pr…
This disclosure is one of the biggest by city prosecutors thus far in response to our Freedom of Information Law appeals for DA data on NYPD misconduct. One officer pled guilty to DWI, another to harassment. Both stayed on the force:
Jan 29, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
New: Last year, NY’s DA association blocked the roll out of a commission to investigate prosecutorial misconduct. Now Brooklyn Assemblyman @NNickPerry is pushing for a vote on it again: gothamist.com/news/brooklyn-…
The defense bar has long criticized the courts’ ability to rein in ADA misconduct. An ex Suffolk county prosecutor recently had his law license suspended for just 2 years despite working on two murder cases in which key evidence was withheld. newsday.com/long-island/ku…
Nov 19, 2020 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
Over the last year, we've investigated claims in secret tapes that cops in Mount Vernon, NY allied with favored drug dealers—while assaulting, robbing or framing others. Now, several Black residents want their convictions tossed. Here are their stories: gothamist.com/news/mount-ver…2/ Many of the allegations in the tapes and from residents involve a narcotics detective, who has racked up over 500 arrests in his career. For years, civilians filed complaints against him resulting in little to no discipline: gothamist.com/news/corruptio…
Sep 15, 2020 • 34 tweets • 5 min read
STARTING NOW: Police unions are in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals continuing to fight NYC's planned release of police misconduct records. In June, Albany voted to repeal a longstanding ban on the release of these records, prompting this months-long court saga...
2/ The city got a favorable decision from the district court last month, which the unions chose to appeal. Let's see if this court tinkers with the parameters set in that preliminary decision. More context here from a colleague: gothamist.com/news/federal-j…
