Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday stood firmly behind top City Hall aide Tim Pearson amid reports that some of his closest advisers have been pushing him to fire the scandal-scarred staffer.
Hizzoner has been extremely reluctant to publicly criticize Pearson, let alone give him the pink slip, despite more than a year of negative headlines surrounding the top aide. Pearson, a former police inspector, is Adams’ longtime personal friend and was his commanding officer when the two served in the NYPD.
Now, several of Adams’ top advisers are pushing for Pearson’s ouster after the federal raids earlier this month, according to a report from Politico. The mayor’s apparent reluctance to heed their calls so far reportedly led one of them, his former Chief Counsel Lisa Zornberg, to resign over the weekend.
The generally Adams-friendly New York Post editorial board surprisingly joined the chorus of those calling on him to cut ties with Pearson in a Monday night editorial.
Nevertheless, when reporters pressed him several times during his weekly wide-ranging press conference on Sept. 17, Adams would not directly answer why he continued to show such unshakable loyalty to Pearson.
Instead, Hizzoner said he wants to let ongoing inquiries and lawsuits surrounding Pearson play out before taking further action while also seeking to downplay the suits against the embattled adviser.
“I’m a strong believer in letting the process take its course,” Adams said.
Pearson, who officially works for the NYC Economic Development Corporation and oversees much of the city’s migrant shelter contracting process, has perhaps become the single most controversial figure in Adams’ administration.
He caught heat for drawing private and public salaries at the same time in 2022 — leading him to resign from his job as Resorts World’s head of security; is the subject of a city Department of Investigation probe into a physical altercation between himself and two guards at a Midtown migrant shelter last fall; and was accused of sexual harassment and retaliation in four separate lawsuits this year.
Most recently, Pearson was one of several top City Hall officials who had their homes searched and devices confiscated in connection with what appear to be two separate federal investigations into the administration. According to published reports, one of those probes involves a scheme related to the NYPD’s enforcement of nightlife businesses, and the other is looking at potential corruption in the city’s contracting process.
The inquiries saw federal search warrants executed on several top administration officials, including former NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban, who resigned last week; First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, her long-time partner and city Schools Chancellor David Banks; and his brother Phil Banks, who is also the deputy mayor for public safety.
During the Sept. 17 news conference, Adams insisted he is loyal not just to Pearson but also to all of the municipal workforce’s 300,000 plus employees. He also attempted to counter the perception that he has filled the upper levels of his administration entirely with close personal friends.
“There’s a real energy that Adams only has his friends in the department,” he said. “I hire competent people that inherited a city that needed real leadership, and they brought that authentic leadership.”
The mayor also responded to the notion that Zornberg resigned because he did not heed her advice to fire Pearson by questioning the accuracy of the reporting.
“I had a private conversation with the chief counsel … and unless you were in that conversation, I don’t know how any people could say that’s the reason that she did or didn’t leave,” Adams said. “So, your speculations and your stories are based on your analysis and the noise that you’re hearing.”
However, at least one of the mayor’s 2025 Democratic primary challengers—city Comptroller Brad Lander—told reporters Tuesday that Pearson and other embattled City Hall occupants would have no place in his administration if he were elected mayor.
“I would have fired them long ago,” Lander said. “I mean, I wouldn’t have hired them in the first place, but I would have fired them long ago.”
