With help from Amira McKee
THE FINAL STRAW? Construction executive Erden Arkan must not have friends in the Trump administration like Mayor Eric Adams does. So while the Department of Justice moved to dismiss the mayor’s case, the wheels of justice kept turning for Arkan.
The Turkish-American co-owner of KSK Construction Group was given a light sentence of one year probation today in Manhattan federal court. He’ll also pay a $9,500 fine and $18,000 in restitution after pleading guilty in January to giving 10 employees $1,250 each to donate to Adams’ campaign.
But even while accepting that he broke New York City campaign finance laws, Arkan’s lawyer Jonathan Rosen presented him as a victim of “an unprecedented act of prosecutorial discretion,” suggesting that federal prosecutors with the Southern District of New York wanted to salvage some sort of a win following the tumult and rounds of resignations over the dismissal of Adams’ case.
Rosen also suggested Arkan’s case never should have been brought in federal court in the first place, arguing he was “targeted… to serve some greater end in a bureaucratic power struggle over the Adams case.”
While an official from the Turkish consulate helped coordinate Arkan’s May 2021 fundraising event for Adams, Rosen said that Arkan “never had any knowledge of foreign interference” alleged by federal prosecutors. He maintained that neither the Adams campaign nor the Turkish consulate knew about Arkan’s straw donor scheme, which he’d cooked up himself.
Judge Dale Ho dismissed the arguments. While he conceded “it is true that there is some incongruency between the government’s handling of Mr. Arkan’s case and Mayor Adams’ case,” he was firm that “there is not a shred of evidence in the record” indicating that the prosecutors acted wrongly prosecuting Arkan.
Another related case hasn’t been resolved yet. Former Adams aide Mohamed Bahi pleaded guilty Tuesday to helping to organize a separate straw donor scheme for Adams’ 2021 campaign.
While Adams himself hasn’t been accused of coordinating straw donations, the practice has been a serious problem for his campaign. Adams’ old friend Dwayne Montgomery pleaded guilty last year along with other co-conspirators to giving Adams illegal donations, and THE CITY has reported on numerous examples of more apparent straw donations to Adams.
Rep. Dan Goldman, a former federal prosecutor, told Playbook earlier this week that this wasn’t an ideal outcome for Adams’ case.
“As a prosecutor, I never liked when, ultimately, the only people held accountable for their crimes were the lower level people,” he said. “But under the circumstances, when you’ve charged someone and there’s a legitimate reason to charge that person, the right thing to do is to finish off the case.” — Jeff Coltin
LET’S ALL GO TO THE (ASSEMBLY) LOBBY: New York moviegoers might soon have an easier time skipping the increasingly lengthy block of advertisements and trailers shown before the film starts, if a bill introduced this week becomes law.
Assemblymember Clyde Vanel wants to require theaters to display the time a movie actually starts when promoting showings or selling tickets. His proposal comes as movies increasingly start as much as half an hour after the advertised time.
“For the consumer, this can have a real monetary and social impact,” he wrote in his memo accompanying the bill. “Consumers not only may leave obligations earlier than they needed to in order to see the motion picture, but they may also consume their snacks purchased at the theater prior to the movie beginning.”
“There is no justification for deceiving consumers,” he wrote, especially since moviegoers “cannot bring their own snacks to eat if they consumed their purchased snacks within the extremely long 30-minute preview period.”
The bill would not apply to broadcasts of the Assembly session — where starting within half an hour of the scheduled time would be a major improvement. — Bill Mahoney
NO ‘SHOOK ONES’: Queens Borough President Donovan Richards pledged today to help turn out Black voters for Zohran Mamdani in November, evoking both Martin Luther King Jr. and Mobb Deep in his enthusiastic endorsement.
The Democratic mayoral nominee’s policies — including a rent freeze and free and fast buses — are common sense, not socialism, Richards said in the borough that he and Mamdani both call home. Richmond Hill, Queens was the last stop of Mamdani’s “Five Boroughs Against Trump” tour.
“Count me in as a democratic socialist if it means that everyday New Yorkers will be able to afford this city,” Richards said, adding that civil rights icon King “was called a socialist and communist as well” and referencing hip-hoppers Mobb Deep by boasting that there are no “shook ones” in the borough, a reference to the group’s hit song. Richards had previewed his endorsement of Mamdani a day earlier.
One of Mamdani’s biggest weak spots electorally has been politically moderate Black voters in areas like southeast Queens. And while he now has Richards as a surrogate, Queens Democratic Party leader Rep. Greg Meeks has yet to endorse him. (A Meeks spokesperson did not respond today to a query on whether the House member plans to meet with Mamdani.)
Mamdani’s support in the primary was stronger in parts of the city that are heavily gentrified. Southeast Queens includes neighborhoods that have resisted being priced out.
Mamdani acknowledged the critical balance between creating homes for new residents without pushing out longer-term residents.
“One of the many things I appreciate about the borough president is how he has been able to chart a course of building more housing (though) not at the expense of displacing those who already live there,” he said. — Emily Ngo
SEX WORK DEBATE: Andrew Cuomo went on the offensive today over Mamdani’s past support for state legislation that would decriminalize sex work in New York.
The former governor said in a statement that he spent years fighting iterations of the bill over concerns it would lead to an increase in sex trafficking and exploitation of vulnerable New Yorkers.
“Mark my words: This is the real world and if passed, this legislation will open the floodgates,” Cuomo said in the statement. “Mamdani may not remember the bad old days of New York City, where Times Square was seedy and crime infested and New Yorkers knew which neighborhoods to avoid at all costs. We do, and no one should be eager to return to that era.”
Cuomo’s stance was backed by Sonia Ossorio, executive director at National Organization for Women New York City. Ossorio has previously criticized Mamdani’s position on decriminalization.
“Full decriminalization doesn’t protect vulnerable people — it expands a market that thrives on exploitation, human trafficking, and crime in our neighborhoods,” she said in a statement.
Mamdani twice co-sponsored a bill that would decriminalize sex work and clear past arrest records related to prostitution while still allowing law enforcement to go after trafficking operations.
Campaign spokesperson Dora Pekec declined to say whether Mamdani still supports the concept and whether he would advocate for the legislation from City Hall if elected. But she noted that the Democratic nominee has pledged additional resources to assist victims of prostitution and sex trafficking.
“While Andrew Cuomo is only interested in ‘governing’ behind a phone screen, Zohran is committed to genuine public safety, including combatting sex trafficking,” Pekec said in a statement that referenced a new department Mamdani plans to create. “His Department of Community Safety will invest $40 million towards victims services including for programs like Safe Horizon, for which funding has been cut in past budgets.”
The issue of whether to decriminalize sex work has been the subject of heated debate over the years. Organizations like DecrimNY, a coalition of sex workers and various organizations aligned with the decriminalization movement, argue the changes would make sex workers safer by allowing them to report violence or unsafe working conditions to authorities without fear of arrest while delivering more autonomy to consenting adults. — Joe Anuta
CANNABIS REGULATORS SUED AGAIN: A dozen cannabis dispensary licensees are suing the state over a flip-flop on the cannabis agency’s interpretation of the state’s 2021 legalization law.
“The consequences are staggering. Petitioners’ investments, often more than a million dollars, are now at risk” the petition reads. “Their livelihoods are being threatened.”
The petitioners are licensed under the Conditional Adult-use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) and Social and Economic Equity (SEE) licensing programs, which prioritize entrepreneurs with past cannabis convictions, women and minorities.
The legal challenge seeks to block regulators from enforcing a new interpretation of school distance requirements in the state’s cannabis legalization law, which would force licensees out of their dispensary locations that had been previously approved by the agency.
Agency about-face: Earlier this month, the Office of Cannabis Management notified more than 100 licensees that their dispensary locations could be impacted due to the agency’s misinterpretation of state law.
The licensees are asking the court to annul the agency’s new interpretation of the law, declare their locations compliant and block the state from taking any enforcement actions against them over the school distance requirement.
A spokesperson for the OCM said that the office does not comment on pending litigation.
The agency is proposing a legislative fix that would allow licensees to remain in their locations, but emphasized on its website that passing such legislation “is not a guarantee.” The state is also creating an $15 million applicant relief fund for up to $250,000 per applicant to help find new locations. — Mona Zhang
—26 FED PLAZA: As fewer immigrants show up for their court hearings, arrests at 26 Federal Plaza’s immigration courthouses are nearing a standstill. (THE CITY)
— GOV. CLEMENCY: Hochul pardoned a Laotian immigrant Friday to stop his deportation. (The New York Times)
— CUT THE CHECK: Progressive Democrats in the New York Legislature are decrying Hochul’s $2 billion rebate program as fiscally irresponsible amid looming federal cuts. (Gothamist)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
