FBI agents Thursday raided the Brooklyn home of Brianna Suggs, the manager of Mayor Adams’ campaign fund-raising operation who has claimed credit for raking in more than $19 million for his political efforts over the years, according to sources familiar with the matter and public records.
According to a bombshell search warrant reported by The New York Times, the raid on Suggs’ townhouse home in Crown Heights is part of a federal public corruption investigation into whether Adams’ 2021 campaign conspired with the Turkish government and a Brooklyn construction firm to funnel foreign cash into the campaign’s coffers via straw donors.
The warrant reportedly sought evidence of a conspiracy to steal federal funds, make illegal campaign donations with foreign money and fraud, and whether Adams’ campaign secured perks for Turkish government officials and executives at the construction company, a Williamsburg-based outfit called KSK Construction Group.
Before news broke of the raid, Adams traveled to Washington for a series of meetings with White House officials and congressional lawmakers about the city’s migrant crisis. But shortly after arriving in the nation’s capital, an Adams spokeswoman said he had canceled all his meetings to return to the city.
Vito Pitta, Adams’ campaign lawyer, confirmed the raid at Suggs’ home was part of an investigation related to the mayor’s 2021 campaign. An FBI spokesman said the raid was “a court-authorized law enforcement activity,” but declined any additional comment.
In his first public appearance since the raid, Adams said at an unrelated event at Gracie Mansion Thursday evening that he has not been contacted by any law enforcement authorities as part of the probe. He said he rushed back to the city from D.C. in order to deal with fallout from the raid.
“That’s why I came back from D.C., to be here, to be on the ground and look at this inquiry as it was made,” he said, adding that he holds his “campaign to the highest ethical standards.”
The warrant authorized FBI agents to seize Suggs’ cell phones, laptops and other electronic devices as well as records related to her finances, contributions to Adams’ 2021 campaign, travel to Turkey by any campaign officials and communications between the campaign and Turkish government operatives, according to The Times.
Neither Adams, Suggs nor anyone affiliated with the administration or campaign have been accused of any wrongdoing as part of the probe.
Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, declined comment.
Eleven employees of KSK, the Brooklyn construction firm listed in the search warrant, donated $13,950 on the same day in May 2021 to Adams’ campaign, according to city records. Among the KSK employees listed as donating was the firm’s owner, Erden Arkan, who states on his LinkedIn profile that he received his education at Istanbul University in Turkey.
“I can’t give you any information. I have no idea what you’re talking about,” an employee at KSK’s offices in Williamsburg said when asked by the Daily News about Thursday’s FBI raid.
Adams has a history of traveling to Turkey. In 2015, Adams traveled there, raising eyebrows during the 2021 mayoral campaign for accepting the trip that was bankrolled by its government, which is lead by dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The raid comes months after the Manhattan district attorney’s office indicted six Adams campaign supporters, including a retired NYPD inspector who’s friends with the mayor, on charges of orchestrating a sweeping straw donor scheme to boost Adams’ 2021 run. Neither the mayor nor his campaign were accused of wrongdoing as part of the DA’s indictment.
In Thursday’s raid, cell phone video obtained by The News showed more than a dozen federal agents in FBI vests and jackets outside the Lincoln Place home at around 9 a.m.
Christopher Burwell, a 54-year-old neighbor who shot the video footage, said he saw FBI agents questioning Suggs and her father on her stoop during the raid.
FBI agents left Suggs’ home carrying cardboard boxes with what appeared to be documents, according to Ruben, 31, a filmmaker who was doing a video shoot on the block when the raid took place and only spoke on condition that his last name not be used.
Burwell called Suggs a “good young lady” and said he knows she works for the mayor.
Suggs did not return phone calls and text messages.
Suggs, whose professional ties with Adams date back to 2017 when she interned for him as Brooklyn borough president, has worked as the coordinator of the mayor’s political fund-raising activities since his successful 2021 mayoral campaign.
Her LinkedIn profile says she was responsible for raising $18.4 million for Adams’ 2021 campaign, and she has claimed credit in city records for raking in at least $900,000 for his 2025 reelection effort, with which she continues to be involved.
Suggs’ LinkedIn also says she’s a fund-raiser for the Brooklyn Democratic Party, which is lead by Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, a prominent Adams ally.
“We hold Brianna Suggs in very high regard,” Bichotte Hermelyn said in a brief phone interview after the raid. “She’s been very successful at raising funds for the mayor.”
According to an Adams campaign rep and two sources familiar with the mayor’s inner circle, Suggs is the goddaughter of Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Adams’ chief adviser at City Hall who has known and worked with him for decades.
While at Brooklyn Borough Hall, Suggs reported directly to Lewis-Martin, then Adams’ deputy borough president, before being tapped to take on the fund-raising duties, the sources said.
According to campaign finance records, Adams’ 2025 campaign has paid Suggs nearly $100,000 for consulting services. His 2021 campaign paid her more than $50,000, records show.
While still at Borough Hall, Suggs donated $945 to Adams’ 2021 campaign, most of it in $25 increments, going back as far as July 2019, records show.
In April, The News exclusively reported that Suggs solicited donations for Adams’ reelection campaign while also being paid to lobby his administration on behalf of a Manhattan property owner with business before the city — a setup that unnerved government watchdogs who said it potentially opened the door to pay-to-play politics.
Betsy Gotbaum, executive director of the Citizens Union watchdog group, said at the time that Suggs’ dual lobbying and fund-raising efforts likely didn’t violate any laws. But she said she thinks that type of overlap “should be illegal.”
Adams’ cancelation of his Thursday business in Washington came very abruptly.
Before turning back around to return to the city, Adams posted a video on his Twitter page of himself explaining what he was expecting to focus on in his since-canceled meetings.
“We are headed to D.C. to meet with our congressional delegation and the White House to address this real issue with the asylum and migrant issue,” he said in the video. A City Hall spokesman said two Adams staffers stayed behind in D.C. to attend the sit-downs on the mayor’s behalf.
Adams’ 2021 campaign has been dogged by revelations about finance irregularities in recent months.
Shahid and Yahya Mushtaq, two of the six Adams supporters indicted on straw donor charges by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in July, pleaded guilty last month, admitting they funneled cash in the names of unwitting individuals in order to illegally inflate the amount of public matching funds the mayor’s 2021 campaign could recoup. As part of their plea deal, the Mushtaqs have to cooperate with the DA’s team as it continues to prosecute their co-defendants, including Dwayne Montgomery, the ex-NYPD inspector who’s friends with Adams.
The purpose of the alleged scheme was to curry favor with Adams in hopes that would net Montgomery, the Mushtaqs and the other co-defendants lucrative city contracts once he became mayor, prosecutors say.
In addition to the DA indictment, The News and other outlets have reported on contributors to Adams’ 2021 campaign who when contacted said they could not recall giving money to him even though they’re listed in city records as doing so.
With Kerry Burke, Ellen Moynihan, Graham Rayman and Molly Crane-Newman
