Eric Adams’ advisor is cooperating with the FBI investigation into the New York mayor

An aide to Mayor Eric Adams, who served as a longtime liaison to the Turkish community and whose home was raided by the FBI, cooperated in the corruption investigation into the mayor and his 2021 campaign, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Counsel Rana Abbasova’s cooperation could mark a significant development in the sweeping corruption investigation that has focused in part on whether Mr. Adams’ campaign colluded with the Turkish government to funnel illegal foreign donations into campaign coffers – and whether Mr Adams pressured fire department officials to approve construction of a new Turkish consulate tower despite safety concerns.

It was unclear what information Ms. Abbasova, the protocol director for the mayor’s office of international affairs, provided to federal authorities. However, according to emails, she was involved in or had knowledge of some of Mr. Adams’ dealings with Turkish government officials and businessmen. She also helped coordinate events and meetings with members of the Turkish community in New York and abroad and organized some of his travel, accompanying him on two official trips to Turkey, according to records.

Ms. Abbasova, 41, a native of Azerbaijan, had worked for Mr. Adams in the Brooklyn borough president’s office for about four years before he became mayor. She began speaking to the team of FBI agents and federal prosecutors conducting the corruption investigation in the weeks following the Nov. 2 search of her home. On the same day, agents also searched the homes of the mayor’s top fundraiser and a former Turkish airline executive.

Like the mayor and others under investigation, Ms. Abbasova has not been formally accused of wrongdoing. It is unclear whether she will plead guilty to any crimes related to her cooperation.

Her attorney, Rachel Maimin, declined to comment Monday, as did spokesmen for the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI

One of the lawyers representing Mr. Adams, Brendan R. McGuire, said in a statement that working with Ms. Abbasova was “not a new or significant development.” He noted that Adams administration officials had previously shared information with federal prosecutors about what they said were improper actions by Ms. Abbasova after the search of her home.

“It is our understanding that Ms. Abbasova has spoken with investigators since her inappropriate behavior was reported by the government in November,” the statement said.

People familiar with the matter said her actions in some way involved speaking to another employee about communications.

Since the investigation became public, Mr. Adams has denied any wrongdoing and said he always urges his employees to obey the law.

Four days after searching the homes of Ms. Abbasova and the others, FBI agents approached Mr. Adams on the street after an event at New York University in Greenwich Village. They ordered his security detail to step aside, got into his car with him, served him a warrant and seized his electronic devices. Federal agents and prosecutors have taken few public steps since then.

The search warrant to raid the Brooklyn home of the mayor’s top fundraiser, Brianna Suggs, described at least some of the possible crimes that FBI agents and prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York were investigating as part of the corruption investigation.

It said they were looking for evidence to support possible charges, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, theft of federal funds and conspiracy to steal federal funds, and campaign contributions from foreign nationals and conspiracy to make such contributions.

Federal authorities have also collected evidence that the Turkish Airlines chief executive, in coordination with Ms. Abbasova, helped arrange upgrades for Mr. Adams at Turkish Airlines, a company that Mr. Adams has praised — even to a pro-government Turkish publication in 2017 that the airline is “my way of flying”.

Ms. Abbasova, who served Mr. Adams as a volunteer in the borough president’s office before being hired full-time in 2018, was suspended from her position as protocol director in the days following the search of her New Jersey home, but before that search became public.

The mayor’s team told the New York Post that it proactively placed her on leave after discovering the improper actions cited by Mr. McGuire.

It was not publicly known at the time that the FBI searched Ms. Suggs’ home that same morning. Agents had also shown up at the New Jersey homes of Ms. Abbasova and Cenk Öcal, the former Turkish Airlines chief executive who served on the mayor’s office transition team. The New York Times reported on these searches two weeks later. Mr Öcal has repeatedly declined to comment.

After searching Ms. Suggs’ home, agents walked out with electronic devices and a manila folder marked “Eric Adams.”

That day, Mr. Adams had planned to meet with federal officials in Washington about the refugee crisis, which he had described as an issue of vital importance to New York City. But when he found out about the raid, he canceled his public appointment and returned home. At the time, his office simply said he wanted to “deal with a matter.”

When the Times reported the raid on Abbasova’s home, Adams’ spokesman said she was a “low-level employee.” But she and Adams had a long-standing professional relationship.

Ms. Abbasova received her medical and dental training in Azerbaijan and Turkey before moving to the United States, where she continued her medical education and entered government service, according to an application she submitted to serve on the board of a charter school had submitted.

“Rana Abbasova is a proud Azerbaijani-American who is building relationships with many ethnic immigrant communities,” the application states.

During his first term as borough president, Ms. Abbasova helped him network with the small Turkish and Azerbaijani communities in Brooklyn. She was assigned an office in Borough Hall.

In 2015, she traveled to Turkey with Mr. Adams. The trip was sponsored by the Turkish Consulate and the World Tourism Forum Institute, an organization that aims to promote global tourism.

In 2018, Ms. Abbasova joined Mr. Adams’ paid staff as a “community coordinator,” earning $50,000 a year, according to city records. According to a list provided to Mr. Adams’ successor in Brooklyn, Antonio Reynoso, her title until 2021 was “compliance unit assistant.”

In that role, “she was responsible for international relations and maintaining relationships between the borough president and stakeholders, including Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries, Muslim and Russian-speaking communities, and non-profit organizations,” according to her City Hall biography.

When Mr. Adams became mayor in 2022, Ms. Abbasova moved to City Hall and worked as its “director of protocol for international affairs,” a position in which she “advises and assists the mayor” and others “on matters of diplomatic protocol and etiquette.” . “ says the biography. When she was furloughed, she was making about $80,000 a year.

According to Social Explorer, a demographic data company, the Turkish community in Brooklyn is not particularly large. As of 2022, there were 4,625 Turkish-born Brooklyn residents, making them the 38th largest group of foreign-born New Yorkers in the borough.

The role Ms. Abbasova held in Brooklyn no longer exists, a spokeswoman for Mr. Reynoso told The Times last year.

Ms. Abbasova worked in the borough president’s office with Mr. Öcal, the former New York executive of Turkish Airlines, The Times previously reported. Mr Öcal had a relationship with Mr Adams and was one of hundreds of people on his mayoral transition team.

She helped organize a dinner that Mr. Öcal attended while Mr. Adams was district president, with Turkish consular officials and board members of the Turken Foundation, a U.S. nonprofit with close ties to the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

She also helped organize Mr. Adams’ appearance at a Turkish Airlines gala at the Metropolitan Club in Manhattan in 2019, where he gave a short speech.

Ms. Abbasova was also proposed in 2015 as a board member of the aspiring charter school Mentora International, which applied to operate in New York and was supported by Enver Yücel, a Turkish entrepreneur and philanthropist who met with Mr. Adams in 2015 in Turkey and in Brooklyn . New York State denied Mentora’s application and the charter school did not open.

As part of the search warrant they obtained to search Ms. Suggs’ home, federal investigators were looking for records of campaign contributions from people associated with Bay Atlantic University, a nonprofit college and graduate school in Washington, D.C., founded by Mr. Yücel.

Mr. Adams’ mayoral campaign received donations totaling $10,000 from five employees of Bay Atlantic University on September 27, 2021, a week after the unveiling of the new Turkish consulate building in Manhattan, and reimbursed the donations the following month. After Mr. Adams won the mayoral election in November, Mr. Yücel posted a picture together on Instagram.

“I would like to warmly congratulate my dear friend Eric Adams on his new role as the new Mayor of New York City,” the caption reads.

Emma Fitzsimmons And Nicole Hong contributed to the reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed to the research.