The last defendant in the Manhattan DA’s straw donor case involving Eric Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign pleaded guilty to a non-criminal violation Tuesday.
Millicent Redick, a retired Harlem accountant and mother of two, agreed to plead to disorderly conduct and pay a $225 fine to resolve her role in a donation scheme that originally swept up a retired NYPD inspector and four other defendants.
Redick, who prosecutors acknowledged was always a minor player in the case, also has to avoid involvement in political campaigns for a year. Her lawyer Alexei Grosshtern said prosecutors dismissed the criminal charges she faced as part of the deal.
“We are pleased with the dismissal of all criminal charges and see this as a just result,” Grosshtern said.
The case began in July 2023 with heavy media coverage of the indictment of six people, including retired inspector Dwayne Montgomery, on charges they conspired to raise illegal amounts of money for Adams’ 2021 campaign by using straw donors.
Montgomery, contractor Shamsuddin Riza and the other three defendants have previously pleaded guilty.
But through 11 court appearances spanning 16 months before Judge Althea Drysdale, Redick refused to take a plea even though last May prosecutors reduced their demand from a felony to a misdemeanor.
In April, prosecutors acknowledged in court that Redick neither benefited financially nor was a key player in the alleged scheme. No money she touched actually ended up with the campaign.
Her resistance changed within the past couple of days when prosecutors proposed the non-criminal violation.
Shamsuddin Riza is pictured pictured during his arraignment. (Curtis Means/Pool)
She told The News in June that her motivation for even getting involved rested with an effort to get the city’s attention over deep-seated structural problems with a botched renovation in Esplanade Gardens, the Harlem apartment complex where she has lived since 1968.
“I wrote letters to elected officials, I wrote letters to the city,” Redick said in June. “I wrote press releases. I contacted code enforcement. I went to the courts. They did nothing. It’s like a Catch-22.”
She was able to get Adams to spend an hour with her and her friends in her apartment during the campaign discussing the issues faced by the complex and even took a photograph with him.
Adams, though, told reporters he did not remember the meeting.
Redick declined to comment on the plea deal. The Manhattan DA’s office also declined to comment.