Turkish businessman Erden Arkan pleaded guilty on Friday afternoon in federal court to funneling thousands of dollars to Mayor Adams’ 2021 campaign on behalf of his country’s government, a move that paves the way for him to testify against the mayor..
Speaking with a hoarse voice from the lower Manhattan courtroom, Arkan admitted to orchestrating straw donations to Adams’ mayoral campaign through the construction company he partly owns, KSK, in April 2021. Arkan indicated last month he planned to enter the plea — the first resulting from the ongoing probe of Turkish donations to the mayor’s campaign.
“When I wrote the checks, I knew the Adams campaign would use the checks to apply for public matching funds,” Arkan said, referring to the system under which city political candidates get donations from local residents matched eight fold with city dollars.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Celia Cohen told the court that if Arkan had gone to trial, prosecutors would have provided testimony, photographs, video electronic records, and other evidence to establish his guilt. Manhattan Federal Court Judge Dale Ho accepted Arkan’s plea and set his sentencing for Aug. 15.
Cohen asked it be scheduled after Adams’ trial, which is set to begin in April.
It is unclear whether the plea will require him to cooperate in the feds’ ongoing corruption investigation into the mayor, but it is common for federal defendants who plead guilty in cases to agree to testify or cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for leniency at sentencing.
The plea comes as prosecutors with the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, who have said they are looking at the possibility of bringing more charges against the mayor, siad in a filing they’d uncovered “additional criminal conduct” the mayor and others engaged in.
Adams is accused of soliciting and accepting illegal straw donations from Arkan and others as well as luxury travel upgrades and perks in exchange for doling out political favors for the Turkish government. He is expected to head to trial on the five counts of bribery, conspiracy and wire fraud in April — just two months before he’s up for reelection in the June primary.
He has pleaded not guilty.
Arkan appears in Adams’ indictment as “Businessman #5.” Per the indictment, he hosted a fundraiser for the soon-to-be mayor at his firm’s Brooklyn office in May 2021. That day, records show Arkan and 11 employees of the firm donated nearly $14,000 cumulatively to Adams’ campaign.
After submitting those contributions for public matching funds, the Adams campaign raked in an additional $22,000 in taxpayers’ cash off of them, records show.
All of those donations were illegal straw contributions funded by Arkan and made “at the behest of” Reyhan Ozgur, Turkey’s consul general in New York, according to Adams’ indictment. Ozgur and Arkan allegedly agreed to make the illegal donations during a dinner with Adams in April 2021.
“We are supporting you,” Ozgur told Adams at that dinner, according to court papers.
As part of his plea, Arkan agreed to $18,000 restitution payments and not to contest a sentence below six months. He also faces the risk of being denaturalized, deported and denied entry to the U.S. in future, Ho warned him.
The offense Arkan pleaded to faces a maximum of up to five years in federal prison, three years supervised release and $250,000 in fines.