Mayor Eric Adams’s former top legal counsel, Lisa Zornberg, met with another key mayoral aide whose phone was seized by the FBI, Tim Pearson, on at least four occasions to discuss “asylum seeker crisis contracts,” a review by THE CITY has found.
Zornberg resigned abruptly and without explanation on Saturday night, 10 days after Pearson’s electronic devices were taken by federal investigators as part of one of four separate legal probes into City Hall.
Most of the meetings between Zornberg and Pearson focused on his role in awarding migrant shelter contracts. In another session, she advised him on conflict of interest rules regarding city employees accepting gifts.
At least one of the meetings last year appears to have been quite urgent. On Oct. 13th, Pearson’s schedule noted: “Lisa Zornberg — meeting with you needed ASAP.”
In early morning raids on September 4, the FBI seized the electronic devices of Pearson and several other top Adams’ aides, including Police Commissioner Edward Caban, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks III, his brother, Schools Chancellor David Banks, and Banks’ fiance, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright.
It’s not clear what role Zornberg played in the shelter contract process, and the reasons for her sudden resignation remain a mystery. In her terse letter to the mayor on Saturday, she said, “I have concluded I can no longer effectively serve in my position.”
On Sunday she declined to come to the door of her Long Island home. Her husband told THE CITY that she would not be commenting on the reasons for her resignation. The mayor also declined to provide any information on why Zornberg stepped down when confronted by reporters at the African American Day Parade in Harlem.
Fabien Levy, the deputy mayor for communications, also declined to explain why Zornberg resigned.
The full scope of the investigations being conducted by the Southern District of New York into the mayor’s inner circle is not yet known, but there are indications federal authorities are looking at, among other things, the awarding of city contracts.
The FBI, for instance, also seized the phone of a third Banks brother, Terence, a government relations consultant. Terence Banks was hired by a Florida-based company, Saferwatch, that had been lobbying his brothers, Phil and David Banks, hoping to win a contract to place a “panic button” app into the city school system.
Phil Banks appeared to take action after meeting with Saferwatch’s lobbyist, former City Council speaker Corey Johnson, and last year the NYPD’s school safety unit initiated a pilot program at five schools with the “panic button” app.
The unit’s plan to take the app citywide, however, did not materialize, and Terence Banks took down the website of his firm, The Pearl Alliance, shortly after reporters started asking questions about it. The Daily News has since reported that the FBI obtained the phone of one of Saferwatch’s employees.
Since the spring of 2022, Phil Banks and Pearson have been deeply involved in helping the mayor navigate the influx of 210,000 migrants into the city. Banks is paid $251,000 as the mayor’s top advisor on all public safety issues, and while Pearson technically works for the quasi-city agency, the Economic Development Corp., he is listed as a “senior advisor to the mayor for public safety” at a salary of $244,000.
The mayor specifically assigned Pearson, a former NYPD inspector who’s been a close associate of Adams for decades, the role of overseeing the hundreds of contracts the city was awarding to various vendors including security guard firms.
Recently, allegations have surfaced that Pearson was perhaps expecting something in return for doling out what amounts to tens of millions of dollars worth of contracts. According to a lawsuit filed by some of Pearson’s co-workers, in late 2022 Pearson started discussing migrant contracts and stated, “People are doing very well on these contracts. I have to get mine. Where are my crumbs?”
According to his official schedule, Pearson made several site visits to shelters, some of the time accompanied by Deputy Mayor Banks. One visit without Banks last October to a former Touro College site-turned-shelter in Midtown made headlines after he allegedly grabbed and shoved a security guard who’d demanded to see his ID. That incident is now the subject of an ongoing Department of Investigation probe.
Zornberg was also involved in Pearson’s contract activities, showing up on his schedule four times under the subject “asylum seeker crisis contracts.”
One of the meetings appeared to involve Zornberg, the mayor’s top lawyer, providing legal advice to Pearson regarding a controversial contract with a firm called DocGo the city hired to run several shelters. Comptroller Brad Lander had refused to register the contract after citing what he said were questionable billing practices.
Lander notified Adams of his rejection of the contract Sept. 6, 2023. Pearson scheduled a meeting with Zornberg for Sept. 12, but canceled all his meetings that day. A Sept. 19, 2023 entry on Pearson’s schedule references Zornberg under the subject line “DocGo Strategy Call.”
Other meetings between Pearson and Zornberg are less specific.
Just four days before the altercation at Touro, a scheduled meeting between the two was punctuated by “meeting with you needed ASAP.”
Then on Oct. 19, two days after the Touro confrontation, Pearson’s schedule lists another Zornberg meeting regarding “Asylum contracts working group — next steps.”
About a week later on Oct. 24, Pearson scheduled a meeting with Zornberg regarding “Chief Counsel COIB training on gifts.” COIB is the city Conflict of Interest Board that oversees enforcement of the city’s ethics rules.
The revelation of the FBI raids disclosed that Mayor Adams and his team are now the subject of four separate federal investigations, three by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams and one by Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace. That’s on top of two sweeping indictments brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg into allegations of bribery and campaign finance fraud.
To date four of Adams’s top appointees have resigned: Building Commissioner Eric Ulrich, two police commissioners, Keechant Sewell and Edward Caban, and now his legal counsel, Lisa Zornberg.
Additional reporting by Katie Honan.
