(The Center Square) — A former top advisor to New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been charged in a migrant housing scheme for allegedly steering a multimillion-dollar shelter contract to a hotel owner in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars in bribes.
A federal indictment, unsealed Wednesday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of New York, charges Frank Carone with bribery, wire fraud, money laundering, and other crimes for allegedly accepting more than $100,000 in bribes to shepherd a city contract for emergency housing for migrants to a Queens hotel.
Carone, who served as Adams’ chief of staff, is also charged with not paying income taxes on the money he received as part of the bribes. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on $2 million bail, authorities said.
Federal prosecutors have also charged Carone’s younger brother, Anthony, hotel owner Yan Po Zhu, and Yan employee Crystal Chen in connection with the bribery scheme. They also pleaded not guilty.
First Assistant United States Attorney Considine said Carone and other defendants “exploited the unprecedented migrant crisis in New York City for their own personal gain.”
“The defendants engaged in a bribery scheme to secure a migrant shelter contract worth millions of dollars from a city agency funded in part by billions of federal dollars,” Considine said in a statement. “This case demonstrates the Office’s commitment to protecting taxpayer dollars, and holding accountable those who misuse public funds for private gain.”
In a statement, Carone’s lawyer Arthur Aidala said the indictment “is not worth the paper upon which it is printed” and called the charges “a sad day for our criminal justice system.”
“It epitomizes the government first finding a target and then spending three years and enormous taxpayer resources to find a crime,” Aidala said in a statement.
Carone, a political consultant who previously served as chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, is the latest among a growing list of Adams allies who have either been indicted or investigated by federal and local authorities.
In 2024, Adams was indicted on five counts of federal bribery, fraud and campaign finance violations that could have landed the former NYPD police captain in jail for decades if he was convicted.
But the Justice Department dropped the charges against Adams, citing the Democrat’s role in pushing back on crime and illegal immigration and suggesting the indictments were politically motivated.
New York City saw hundreds of thousands of migrants flocking to the city between 2022 and 2024 following a surge of immigration on the U.S.-Mexico border. The city spent more than $8 billion on housing, food and other costs for migrants over the past two years, drawing scrutiny from the Trump administration.
Under New York’s right-to-shelter law, the city must provide emergency housing to anyone who requests it, regardless of their immigration status. At one point, the city was operating more than 50 emergency shelters as it struggled to care for more than 70,000 migrants, refugees, and other homeless individuals.
