Brooklyn building firm government Erden Arkan was sentenced to at least one 12 months of probation and ordered to pay greater than $27,000 in fines Friday after pleading responsible to pumping unlawful straw donations into Mayor Adams’ 2021 marketing campaign coffers as a part of a scheme prosecutors say concerned Turkey’s authorities.
Although the associated prison case in opposition to Adams is over, it was revealed in court docket Friday that Arkan has been cooperating within the metropolis Marketing campaign Finance Board’s ongoing investigation into allegations that the mayor’s 2021 and 2025 campaigns engaged in a wide range of straw donor schemes.
Arkan, a Turkish nationwide and proprietor of Williamsburg-based KSK Building who first pleaded responsible in January, was on the verge of tears as he accepted his sentence throughout a morning listening to in Manhattan Federal Courtroom.
“I feel profound sadness for the choices I (made),” he mentioned, his voice cracking up. “I’m sincerely sorry to the New York City taxpayers … I also apologize to this court.”
The money Arkan should cough up contains a $9,500 high quality and an $18,000 restitution cost to the Marketing campaign Finance Board.
Based on his indictment, Arkan, 76, hosted a fundraiser at his workplaces for Adams’ first mayoral marketing campaign in Might 2021 that drew in a complete of $14,000 from 11 people. Information present Adams’ workforce then submitted these contributions for public matching funds, netting his marketing campaign an extra $18,000 in taxpayer money.
Prosecutors allege the donations have been unlawful, as Arkan reimbursed his staff for making them in violation of federal and native legal guidelines, ensuing within the public matching funds unlocked additionally being fraudulent. Moreover, prosecutors allege Arkan made the illicit donations to Adams “at the behest” of Reyhan Ozgur, the Turkish authorities’s ex-consul normal in New York, recognized in court docket papers as “Turkish Official.”
Based on Adams’ now-dismissed corruption indictment, his marketing campaign knowingly solicited and accepted unlawful marketing campaign donations and bribes, largely from Turkish authorities operatives, in change for political favors, like help with metropolis constructing permits.
President Trump’s administration dropped the Adams indictment as a part of a controversial deal that didn’t tackle the deserves of the case. The presiding decide, Dale Ho, wrote the deal “smacks of a bargain” by which the mayor was spared prosecution in change for aiding Trump’s immigration agenda; Adams has denied any quid professional quo.
Barry Williams / New York Each day Information
Arkan pleaded responsible to pumping unlawful straw donations into Mayor Eric Adams’s 2021 marketing campaign. (Barry Williams / New York Each day Information)
Arkan’s protection lawyer, Jonathan Rosen, questioned throughout Friday’s court docket listening to the way it is smart for the Trump-controlled Manhattan U.S. lawyer’s workplace to quash the mayor’s case, however transfer ahead with Arkan’s, given the overlap between them.
“Nothing can normalize this unfair exercise of prosecutorial discretion,” Rosen mentioned.
Ho, who has presided over the Arkan case as effectively, acknowledged there was “incongruity” between his indictment and the Adams case. Nonetheless, the decide rejected the concept Arkan shouldn’t face the music in consequence.
“It is not a victimless crime,” Ho mentioned, arguing Arkan’s offenses violated the general public belief in a approach that “breeds cynicism.”
In a sentencing submission filed earlier this month, Rosen wrote Arkan “did not coordinate his decision to use straw donors” with the Turkish authorities, although he did acknowledge his shopper was first launched to Adams by way of the Turkish consul normal.
Rosen wrote Arkan devised the straw donor scheme after failing to line up sufficient particular person donors to contribute a minimal of $10,000 that the mayor’s marketing campaign had knowledgeable him he wanted to give you in an effort to host the fundraiser.
In a letter to the court docket filed forward of Arkan’s sentencing, the Marketing campaign Finance Board’s normal counsel, Joseph Gallagher, wrote his crimes “wasted taxpayer dollars” and “deteriorated the integrity” of town’s public matching funds program.
Gallagher additionally wrote: “The Board appreciates that Mr. Arkan is cooperating with the Board’s ongoing audit and investigation of the Adams 2021 and 2025 Campaigns.”
As a part of its ongoing probe, the CFB has denied the mayor tens of millions of {dollars} in public matching funds for his reelection bid this 12 months, declaring it continues to imagine he has “violated the law” regardless of the dismissal of his federal case. The mayor maintains he has carried out nothing unsuitable and is contesting the matching funds denial.
Arkan is the primary particular person to be sentenced as a part of a prison case linked to the mayor’s historic indictment.
A second man, former Adams administration official Mohamed Bahi, pleaded responsible earlier this week to orchestrating an analogous straw donor scheme by which one other actual property government of Uzbek descent pumped unlawful money into the mayor’s 2021 marketing campaign by making contributions within the names of staff. Bahi is anticipated to be sentenced this fall.
Initially Printed: August 15, 2025 at 9:46 AM EDT
