Frank Carone, an advisor and chief of staff to New York City’s former Mayor Eric Adams, pleaded not guilty to federal corruption charges related to a bribery scheme involving migrant housing.
The Gothamist reports Carone, his brother Anthony Carone, and Chinese nationals Crystal Chen and Yan Po Zhu received a 13-count indictment, including charges for bribery, money laundering, and other offenses. All four defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges.
According to the charges, Carone agreed to steer a multimillion-dollar migrant shelter contract to a Long Island City hotel owned by Zhu in 2022 for about $120,000 in bribes from Zhu and Chen. The bribes were allegedly directed through Anthony Carone via a bank account tied to Frank Carone’s law firm, and prosecutors alleged the Carone brothers used most of the funds between October 2022 and April 2023 for “personal benefit.”
The indictment said neither brother nor Anthony Carone’s law firm reported the payments to the Internal Revenue Service, while Frank Carone did not report the payments to the New York City Conflict of Interests Board while he was serving Adams’ chief of staff.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York said the defendants “devised and executed a scheme to exploit the city’s migrant crisis for profit.” Attorney Arthur Aidala, who is part of Carone’s legal team, called the charged “weak” and said the indictment was based “on purely circumstantial evidence that’s not worth the paper upon which it’s printed.”
“Everyone who knows the Carone brothers knows they do things the right way; that’s why it took over three years for them to come up with something that they could put on paper,” Aidala stated.
Bail was set at $2 million for Frank Carone, $500,000 for Anthony Carone, $100,000 for Chen and $8 million for Zhu.
Photo via FrankCarone.com
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