Federal prosecutors look closely at ties between New York Mayor Eric Adams and little-known Turkish businessman Enver UsselCNBC learned from the indictment and other public records, including campaign finance documents.
one federal indictment A document unsealed Thursday describes a 2021 campaign fundraising scheme involving Adams, his team and a person identified in the indictment only as “Businessman 1.” The man appears to be Youser, the owner of a network of universities, including one in Turkey called Bahcesehir University and another in Washington, D.C., called Gulf Atlantic University.
The indictment describes Ussel as a businessman who owned a university in Turkey that funded Adams’ trip to the country in 2015, when Adams was still serving as Brooklyn borough president.
An August 2015 letter from the New York Conflict of Interest Board approving the trip, Checklist Bahcesehir was the only university to help pay for the trip. City Reports say Adams met with Ussel in December 2015 as part of his second trip to the country that year.
Requests for comment through leaders of the two universities Ussel owns and emails sent to an address listed on Ussel’s personal website were not responded to. A spokesperson for Adams referred CNBC to his personal attorney, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Adams said he was innocent and had done nothing wrong.
On March 11, Enver Yucel, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Bahcesehir University and President of BAU International University, was interviewed in Istanbul, Turkey, to discuss the importance of hybrid education created by the combination of face-to-face education and distance education in 2021.
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Nonetheless, Ussel appears to have played a key role in Adams’ alleged scheme and his campaign to illegally raise funds from foreign donors for his mayoral campaign, which officially launched in 2020.
“In November 2018, Businessman 1 visited New York City” to meet with Adams, the owner of Turkey’s for-profit education group Turkey University, where Adams met him in 2015, prosecutors said.
It was during that meeting that prosecutors say Ussel offered to donate to Adams’ upcoming mayoral campaign. Despite knowing that foreign donors were prohibited by law, Adams directed one of his aides to “obtain illegal donations provided by Businessman One.”
“Following this directive, Adams wrote to Adams’ staff that Trader One was prepared to assist. I do not want his willingness to help to be diminished,” federal prosecutors said in the indictment.
The indictment alleges that Adams, his advisers and Ussel carried out their plan in 2021 to “use Businessman-1 funds for the 2021 campaign, knowing full well that the contributions would violate U.S. political campaign acceptance rules.” Law on Donations from Foreigners”.
In August 2021, it was decided that “it is planned to provide Businessman-1 contributions to the 2021 event through American employees of Turkish universities.”
New York City campaign finance records show that five U.S. employees at Gulf Atlantic University donated a total of $10,000 to the Adams campaign on September 27, 2021.
The donation dates in campaign finance records are the same as when prosecutors say “the Turkish university ultimately made the straw donation.”
The donations were eventually returned “but not before Adams filed a disclosure statement with the campaign finance committee that falsely claimed American University of Turkey employees were the true donors,” the documents show.
After Adams won the mayoral race in November 2021, Hussel posted a photo of himself and Adams on Instagram.
“I sincerely congratulate my dear friend Eric Adams on his appointment as the new mayor of New York City and wish him continued success in his future endeavors,” Yussel wrote alongside the photo.
In the photo, Adams and Ussel are standing together, holding a book titled “How Not to Die.”
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