Federal prosecutors focused on the relationship between New York City Mayor Eric Adams and a little-known Turkish businessman. Enver YucelCNBC obtained information from indictments and other public records, including campaign finance documents.
a federal indictment unsealed Thursday describes a 2021 campaign financing scheme involving Adams, his team, and a person identified in the indictment only as “Businessman-1.” The man is believed to be Yucel, the owner of a network of universities including Bahcesehir University in Turkey and Bay-Atlantic University, based in Washington, DC.
The indictment alleges that Mr. Yucel, a businessman who owns a university in Turkey, helped Mr. Adams pay for a trip to Turkey in 2015, when the mayor was still Brooklyn’s mayor.
August 2015 letter approving travel from New York’s Conflict of Interest Committee; list Bahcesehir is the only university that provides financial support for travel expenses. the city Adams reported meeting with Yucel in December 2015 as part of his second visit to Japan that year.
Yucel did not respond to requests for comment through the leadership of the two universities he owns or to an email sent to an address listed on Yucel’s personal website. A spokesperson for Adams referred CNBC to his personal attorney, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Adams maintains he is innocent and did nothing wrong.
Enver Yücel, Chairman of the Board of Governors of Bahcesehir University and Rector of BAU International University, gave an interview in Istanbul, Turkey on March 11 about the importance of hybrid education, which combines face-to-face and distance education. , 2021.
Islam Yakutia | Anadolu | Getty Images
Still, Yucel appears to be playing a key role in Adams’ plans and his campaign to illegally raise money from foreign donors for the mayoral race, which officially began in 2020.
“In November 2018, a wealthy Turkish businessman, who owns Turkish University, a for-profit educational conglomerate in Turkey, and whom Adams had met there in 2015, traveled to New York City to meet with Adams.” the prosecutor said.
It was at that meeting that prosecutors said Mr. Yucel offered to donate to Mr. Adams’ upcoming mayoral campaign. Despite knowing the law prohibiting foreign donors, Adams directed one of his aides to “obtain illegal donations provided by Businessman-1.”
“Following this instruction, Adams wrote to the Adams staff that Businessman 1 was ‘ready to help and did not wish to be compromised in his willingness to help,'” federal prosecutors said in the indictment.
The indictment alleges that in 2021, Mr. Adams, his advisor, and Mr. Yucel made contributions to Businessman 1’s funds “with full knowledge that these donations would violate laws prohibiting foreign contributions to U.S. political campaigns.” The government implemented a plan to “infuse this into the 2021 election campaign.”
“The Plan” has been decided in August 2021. [was] The purpose is to collect contributions to Businessman-1’s 2021 campaign through employees of a Turkish university based in the United States. ”
Five Bay Atlantic University U.S. employees donated a combined $10,000 to the Adams campaign on September 27, 2021, according to New York City campaign finance records.
The date of the donation in campaign finance records is the same date that prosecutors said “Turkish University made its final straw donation.”
The donations were eventually returned, but not before Adams filed a disclosure statement with the court. [Campaign Finance Board] “An employee of a U.S.-based Turkish university falsely claimed to be the true donor,” the document states.
After Adams won the mayoral election in November 2021, Yucel posted a photo of herself and Adams on Instagram.
“My heartfelt congratulations to my dear friend Eric Adams on his appointment as the new mayor of New York City, and I wish him continued success in his future endeavors,” Yucel wrote next to the photo.
In the photo, Adams and Yucel stand together holding a book titled “How Not to Die.”