After coming under federal indictment, Mayor Adams was spotted at a food giveaway event in Manhattan last month that was also attended by a scandal-scarred Turkish business tycoon who reportedly could testify against him at his corruption trial, the Daily News has learned.
The businessman, Sezgin Baran Korkmaz, is mentioned in Adams’ indictment, identified as “Businessman #3, a development first reported by LA Magazine Tuesday. Citing several sources familiar with the matter, the California magazine also reported Korkmaz is a reputed CIA asset and expected to testify against Adams at his trial, which is slated to start in April 2025.
According to his indictment, Adams met with “Businessman #3” in Istanbul in January 2019 to discuss plans for the businessman to make an allegedly illegal $50,000 contribution to his 2021 campaign via straw donors.
“During the meeting, Businessman-3 agreed to contribute $50,000 or more to the 2021 Campaign, believing that ADAMS might one day be the President of the United States and hoping to gain influence with ADAMS,” the indictment says. The businessman ultimately never made that contribution as his legal troubles in the U.S. began to emerge, according to court papers.
Adams crossing paths with Korkmaz at last month’s food giveaway comes as the mayor is under a federal protective order prohibiting him from speaking with “witnesses and individuals mentioned in” his indictment “about the facts/circumstances listed in the indictment,” court papers say.
Days after indicting Adams in September on charges that he solicited bribes and illegal campaign cash from Turkish government operatives, prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office provided his legal team with a list identifying the individuals he shouldn’t speak with.
It’s unclear if Korkmaz — who’s currently facing unrelated federal charges in a money laundering case in Utah — is on that list. A City Hall spokeswoman did not immediately return a request for comment on whether the mayor was aware of Korkmaz’s participation in the event.
A video reviewed by The News posted by Korkmaz shows him handing out food, money and supplies to New Yorkers at the Oct. 16 giveaway, as the mayor can be seen standing feet away wearing his signature “GSD NYC” bomber jacket and a cap.
The video does not show Adams and Korkmaz speaking to each other.
It’s unclear who hosted the food giveaway event, which the mayor attended without listing it on his schedule of public appearances. The mayor did post photos on his official X account from the event and included a caption saying he was there to help “making sure New Yorkers had a warm meal on a cold night.”
Adams has pleaded not guilty to the charges in the indctment, and his attorney, Alex Spiro, didn’t return a request for comment Wednesday. The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.
A lawyer listed as representing Korkmaz in the Utah case didn’t immediately return a request for comment about the food giveaway event he attended in the Lower East Side last month.
The details about the Oct. 16 food giveaway event are emerging as Korkmaz is fighting his own criminal case in Utah.
Korkmaz was indicted in that federal case in 2021 on charges alleging he helped launder hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded biofuel subsidies that his co-conspirators had stolen. Korkmaz has pleaded not guilty in that case, and his trial was initially supposed to start last week. However, just last week, he got the trial pushed back to start March 10 instead.
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