Who is Frank Carone, the former Eric Adams official who allegedly accepted $120K in bribes?

Frank Carone, a top ally to former New York City Mayor Eric Adams, was arrested early Wednesday morning in a bribery and money laundering scheme first reported by NBC News. 

Along with Carone and his brother Anthony, who is also a lawyer,  hotel owner Yan Po Zhu and his employee Crystal Chen were also arrested. According to a 13-count federal indictment unsealed Wednesday morning, the charges include bribery, fraud and money laundering. 

The indictment alleges that Carone and the three others together “devised and executed a scheme to exploit the city’s migrant crisis for profit” while the city received federal funds to address the influx of tens of thousands of migrants and asylum-seekers from the southern border.

The indictment charges that as Adams’ chief of staff, Carone steered a $6.8 million emergency contract for a migrant shelter to a Long Island City hotel owned by Zhu in exchange for a series of bribe payments – approximately $120,000 in total – disguised as legal fees. The hotel had initially been rejected for a contract because of the high concentration of migrant shelters in the neighborhood and because of its limited capacity. “We have consistently told them no because it is directly next to (a different) shelter,” one city official privately wrote in an email to another regarding the application. 

After Carone allegedly pressured city officials to reverse course and directed the contract to Zhu and Chen, the indictment says the hoteliers put money into an account controlled by Anthony Carone, who transferred it to an account controlled by his brother and used it to pay Frank Carone’s credit card bills. Per the indictment, the alleged bribe payments continued after Carone left City Hall in December 2022, and lasted through September 2023. When the brothers realized they were the subject of a grand jury investigation in 2024, they attempted to cover up the scheme, making a fake promissory note and dating it to 2022, the indictment alleges.

The indictment does not name, but refers to, former Department of Social Services Commissioner Gary Jenkins as “City Official #1” who allegedly reconsidered the initial decision not to grant a contract to Zhu following Carone’s intervention. After leaving City hall in early 2023, Jenkins joined Carone’s consulting firm Oaktree Solutions. Jenkins did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

The arrests come in the wake of reporting from The New York Times in January that Carone was the subject of a federal corruption investigation touching on his work at City Hall and his business dealings. Carone appeared to have been a focus in the probe since at least the first half of 2024, according to the Times. 

“Frank Carone has dedicated decades of his life to public service, the legal profession, and helping countless individuals, businesses, and charitable organizations throughout New York,” Todd Shapiro, a spokesperson for Adams, said in a text on Wednesday. “This is an ongoing legal matter and my prayers are with his family.”

Carone was a fixture in Adams’ City Hall despite only serving as Adams’ chief of staff for less than a year. A former partner at the law firm Abrams Fensterman, Carone was a counsel to the Brooklyn Democratic Party, worked with Adams in his ascent through Brooklyn politics, and worked with him on his 2021 mayoral campaign and was key in his fundraising efforts, though he was not named in Adams’ indictment.

He is a colorful character with a penchant for socializing. The indictment includes several photographs of Carone partying with the other defendants at one of their mansions or by the pool. Though Carone no longer held an official position in the administration, he remained close with Adams as his mayoralty imploded and many of his other former allies kept their distance.

Shortly after leaving City Hall, Carone opened his own lobbying firm, Oaktree Solutions, and went on to hire other public servants and alums of the Adams administration. City & State first reported that since Mayor Zohran Mamdani took office this year, the firm has shed many of its high-profile employees, and its lobbying operation is dormant.