It was always going to end up like this. That Eric Adams would face an indictment for abusing public office for private gain was a foregone conclusion for anyone paying attention to how Hizzoner operates. The mayor surrounded himself with convicted felons (they make a great branzino) and elevated unindicted coconspirators and those with conspicuously expensive taste into senior roles in his administration. As Adams often says, he values loyalty above all else, and he practices what he preaches: after all, what’s a repeated pattern of law-breaking between friends?

The allegations started well before he took the city’s highest office. During Adams’s tenure as chair of the State Senate Racing, Gaming, and Wagering Committee, a 2010 report from the state inspector general implicated him in a bid-rigging scheme for a gambling venue and racetrack in Queens. Adams said it was a hit job by Republicans, but it was just the first of several close calls. From then on, the New York politician was curiously close to corruption scandals and con men.

By 2020, it was hard for Adams’s fellow borough presidents to discuss the former cop’s jet-setting lifestyle without sounding accusatory. As former presidential candidate Andrew Yang said to Adams during a debate, “We all know you’ve been investigated for corruption everywhere you’ve gone.” Before the 2021 Democratic primary even took place, it came out that Adams had been improperly filing financial disclosure forms and pushing the boundaries of ethics laws for years.