FBI raids homes of two of Eric Adams’ top agents

By Greg B. Smith, Katie Honan and Gwynne Hogan, THE CITY

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A team of FBI agents raided the homes of two of the highest-ranking members of Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks III, on Wednesday morning, sources familiar with the situation told THE CITY.

Officers arrived at Wright’s Hamilton Heights home around 5 a.m. while simultaneously raiding Banks’ brick and wood-plank single-family home in Hollis, a source said.

Wright is the fiancé of David Banks, brother of Phil Banks and Adams’s appointed school chancellor. The chancellor was spotted twice by THE CITY on Thursday as he entered and exited the Hamilton Heights townhouse. Asked about the raid, David Banks declined to comment, saying, “Today is the first day of school and I’m excited,” he said as he hopped into an SUV to head to a scheduled appearance at a Queens school.

The purpose of the raids is unclear, but the source said Wright and Banks’ cellphones and laptop were taken. The FBI raids follow other raids the agency has conducted on Adams and top advisers.

An FBI spokesman declined to comment Thursday morning, but did not deny that the agency had visited the homes of Wright and Phil Banks.

Last November, the FBI seized Adams’ cellphones and laptop and raided the home of his campaign treasurer, Brianna Suggs, in an investigation by the Manhattan U.S. attorney into whether the campaign conspired to solicit illegal foreign donations from entities tied to the Turkish government.

Records document fundraisers bundled by entities with ties to Turkey — Bay Atlantic University, which raised $10,000 through five donations of $2,000 each, and KSK Construction Group, which raised $12,700 from multiple donors. Both were named in a search warrant seeking Suggs’ campaign records, the New York Times reported.

And in February, the FBI raided two Bronx homes owned by a top Adams adviser, Winnie Greco, and the New World Mall in Flushing, Queens, as part of an investigation by the Brooklyn district attorney. Greco has organized multiple fundraisers for Adams and serves as a consultant in the mayor’s office. The Campaign Finance Board, in a recently released draft audit of Adams’ 2021 campaign, identified the mall’s affiliate, J Mart Group, as a suspected middleman that raised nearly $12,700 for the mayor’s campaign.

Wright was a former top executive at United Way when Adams named her as one of his first appointees in January 2022. Phil Banks, a former police officer and close ally of the mayor, was appointed by Adams despite being named as an unindicted accomplice in an NYPD bribery scandal.

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