Eric Adams’ 2021 campaign for mayor simply ignored auditors’ demands for explanations of the sources of its funding, newly released documents show — giving a glimpse behind the scenes of how the city Campaign Finance Board came to decide this week to deny public funding to his reelection bid.
In its post-election audit of Mayor Eric Adams’ 2021 campaign, records released Tuesday to THE CITY under the Freedom of Information Law show the panel demanded that the campaign explain more than 150 events that appeared to be free fundraisers paid for by unknown individuals.
In response, Adams’ team did what they had done repeatedly in the past with CFB: they simply didn’t answer the question.
This non-response was hardly the only example of Adams’ blowing off the CFB’s inquiries. The campaign also ignored CFB’s demand to explain possible straw donations that mask the true identity of the donor — an illegal work-around to contribution limits, examples of which are featured prominently in the criminal campaign finance fraud indictment of the mayor now pending in federal court.
And the campaign made no effort to address questions about suspected intermediaries — fundraisers who collect donations from multiple givers and present them to the candidate in a bundle to increase their clout if their candidate wins. As with the undocumented parties and the possible straw donations, Adams’ campaign attorney, Vito Pitta, just pretended the question wasn’t asked in his response to the CFB.
These non-responses appear to be part of the basis on which the Campaign Finance Board reached its decision to deny Adams’ request for public matching funds for his 2025 re-election bid. Declaring that the campaign likely “engaged in conduct detrimental to the matching funds program,” board chair Frederick Schaffer emphasized that the campaign “also failed to provide documents and information requested by the Board.”
“The campaign fails to provide the most basic information to the Campaign Finance Board’s questions in this post-election response because there are no good answers,” Councilmember Lincoln Restler, D-Brooklyn, who’s frequently criticized the mayor’s fundraising actions. “The Adams campaign has apparently committed fraud repeatedly, so there are no answers that they can provide to assuage the CFB’s concerns without implicating themselves.”
The board’s decision this week was a big setback for Adams, who had submitted claims for $4.3 million in matching funds. His campaign obtained $10 million in public funds in his 2021 bid. On Monday, the mayor said his campaign is still working with the CFB to try to obtain matching funds going forward, proclaiming, “We’re going to have enough money to make a good campaign to get our message out.”
The CFB completed its audit May 31, but the Adams campaign sought and obtained extensions of the deadline to respond. That response finally arrived Nov. 29 and was made public Tuesday.
The campaign’s attorney, Pitta, did not respond to THE CITY’s questions about the audit or explain why he chose to ignore certain questions in his response.
No Explanations
Adams’ track record of non-compliance with campaign finance rules is longstanding, and highlighted in his September indictment.
Prosecutors with the Manhattan U.S. attorney allege that in both the 2021 and 2025 campaigns, Adams and his team solicited and accepted illegal “straw donations,” in some cases from foreign sources tied to the Turkish government. Some of those donations had been red-flagged by CFB during the campaign, and Adams had ignored the panel’s questions about them.
And a review by THE CITY found a long history of Adams’ simply ignoring the CFB’s requests for explanations about dubious donations, including many the campaign submitted as eligible for matching funds. Records show that in the 2025 campaign, CFB has to date deemed nearly one-third of all matching funds claims Adams’ requested to be invalid.
The audit of the 2021 campaign zeroed in on, among other items, 158 undocumented suspected in-kind contributions that appeared to be fundraiser events for which the source of funding and the amount paid out was unknown.
In-kind donations count toward strict individual giving limits for campaigns participating in the CFB’s matching funds program, capped in 2021 at $2,000 per donor.
CFB instructed the Adams campaign, “For each fundraiser, the campaign must provide a written explanation describing how the event was paid for and by whom. The campaign must account for space rental, food/drinks served at the event, entertainment and any other associated expenditures.”
The events the auditors asked for details on included an Aug. 8, 2021 “barbecue” sponsored by Lian Wu Shao, owner of the New World Mall in Flushing’s Chinatown. As THE CITY has reported, the event raised more than $54,000 from 231 donations, all small donations of $249 or $250, the maximum that can be submitted for matching funds.
The audit tagged this event as an “undocumented in-kind contribution.” Adams’ campaign initially told THE CITY the event cost less than $500 and thus didn’t have to be reported, but THE CITY found a video indicating the event was, in fact, a lavish affair held at Shao’s Long Island mansion that included lobster and high-end wine.
It’s not clear who paid for the event or how much it cost, but Shao had already hit the maximum donation allowed — $2,000 — with prior contributions to Adams, so he would have been precluded from paying for the event. New World Mall was raided by law enforcement early this year in one of several ongoing probes of corruption in the Adams administration.
Another “undocumented in-kind contribution” flagged by CFB was an Aug. 10, 2021, event sponsored by developer Mark Caller that raised $47,050 for Adams. Caller was indicted last year on charges of bribing former Adams’ senior aide and building commissioner Eric Ulrich with a discounted beachfront apartment. Caller has pleaded not guilty.
And there’s an Aug. 20, 2021, event that raised $42,800 for Adams hosted by Terence Banks, brother of former Deputy Mayor Philip Banks III and ex-Schools Chancellor David Banks. In September all three Banks brothers had their electronic devices seized by law enforcement in an ongoing corruption probe of City Hall.
A day after the CFB denied Adams’ more matching funds, Restler — who’d requested that the board take that action weeks ago — saw the Adams’ campaign’s track record of ignoring the CFB as sending a dangerous signal that doing so is okay.
“The Adams campaign has flouted the CFB’s rules at every single turn,” Restler said. “They’ve provided a roadmap on how to skirt the CFB. But finally the CFB decided to hold Eric Adams accountable for stonewalling and apparently fraudulent behavior.”
