Mayor Eric Adams attempted Monday to distance his administration from federal corruption charges brought against two former Fire Department chiefs accused of running a pay-to-play scheme that netted them over $190,000.
During an unrelated Monday news conference, Hizzoner stressed that the Manhattan US Attorney’s investigation focused on alleged conduct that began in 2021, during the administration of his predecessor, Bill de Blasio.
“When action is taken during an administration, people rarely look and see when the action initiated,” Adams said. “The action initiated under another administration. And I think sometimes we skip over that.”
Adams also insisted that when former Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh caught wind of the alleged scheme, she immediately reported it to the city’s Department of Investigation.
“Our administration became aware of it, they took the proper steps and reported the action,” Adams said. “DOI conducted their actions when they became aware of it. That is the way the system is supposed to work.”
The indictment was brought against former FDNY Chiefs Anthony Saccavino and Brian Cordasco, both of whom worked in the department’s Fire Prevention Bureau and retired earlier this year.
The two are accused of “soliciting and accepting” bribes from another retired firefighter, Henry Santiago Jr., who operated a business that promised to “expedite” fire safety inspections. Santiago Jr., the indictment alleged, would offer customers frustrated with FDNY inspection backlogs expediting services for thousands of dollars, and then the FDNY chiefs would fast-track those inspections, taking a 30% cut from each payment, according to the indictment.
‘DMO list’ doesn’t exist, Adams maintains
The mayor also again denied that his administration uses a reported internal list of construction projects by big-name developers for the FDNY to fast-track — known as the “Deputy Mayor for Operations (DMO)” List — which appeared in the indictment.
The roster is reportedly being eyed by the feds as part of a separate probe into the mayor’s 2021 campaign over whether it conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal foreign donations in exchange for favors.
Adams said the indictment “made it clear” that the list was internal to the FDNY, and repeated his claim from late last year that his administration does not have a DMO List.
“We stated it then, and we’re gonna state it again, that this administration did not have a list named like that,” Adams said. “And we made that clear. And we stand by that.”
But according to the indictment, the DMO List is a collection of construction projets that are high-priority for City Hall, not the FDNY.
Meera Joshi, the current Deputy Mayor for Operations, also refuted the list’s existence. Instead, she pointed to an effort to address a significant backlog of building inspections contained in a report called “Get Stuff Built” that City Hall released at the end of 2022.
“There is not a DMO list,” Joshi said. “There is a system that was established by this administration to address a long-standing backlog.”
The apparent federal investigation and indictment of the two FDNY chiefs come as the Adams administration finds itself in a torrent of scandal.
In addition to the probes into the chiefs and the mayor’s 2021 campaign, Adams’ City Hall is also facing at least three other federal investigations, two of which became public earlier this month. Those investigations led to the resignations of two top Adams administration officials in the past week: now former NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban and Chief Counsel Lisa Zornberg.
