New York mayor Eric Adams faces nepotism claim over job for brother

Eric Adams has promised to restore “swagger” to New York, the city he has run as mayor for barely a week. But even in that brief time he has attracted fierce criticism and flirted with scandal.

Related: Progressives concerned as Eric Adams takes helm as New York mayor

On Sunday, the new mayor said a former police chief brought back into the administration despite having resigned seven years ago amid a corruption investigation had not done “anything that was criminal”.

He also said his brother, appointed as a deputy police commissioner, would help keep him safe from “white supremacy and hate crimes”.

In further controversy, Adams’ pick for New York police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, the first woman to fill the post, has clashed with the Manhattan district attorney over proposed criminal justice reform.

Adams picked Philip Banks III for a top public safety post. In 2014, he resigned as chief of the NYPD after being named as an unindicted co-conspirator in an FBI corruption investigation.

On Friday, Banks sought to dispel questions about that scandal, which included questions about deposits totaling $300,000 in accounts belonging to him and his wife.

“I never broke the law, nor did I ever betray the public trust by abusing my authority as an NYPD official,” Banks wrote in the New York Daily News. “From here on, I promise all New Yorkers that I will let my hard work be the evidence of my commitment.”

On Sunday, Adams spoke to CNN’s State of the Union. He said Banks “acknowledges there was some real mistakes, errors that were made. He was not accused of a crime.

“I think that when you look at what happened yesterday, in this city, a young person was shot in a robbery in the store. It really personifies why I need the best person for the job. I can’t leave … good people on the bench when I have a talented person that just made some bad decisions, he didn’t do anything that was criminal.

“Phil is a great person [who] rose to be the chief of the New York City police department during the time when we had to bring down the abuse of stop and frisk and bring down gun violence and crime … he’s the right person for this time to really bring together all of my law enforcement agencies and entities and he’s going to show New York every day he is a right person for this job.”

Adams is a retired NYD officer. So is his brother, Bernard Adams, who most recently worked as assistant director of operations for parking and transportation at the medical campus of Virginia Commonwealth University but has now been appointed as deputy police commissioner with a $240,000-a-year salary. The move has exposed the mayor to accusations of nepotism.

Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, a good governance group, told City & State: “New Yorkers expect that public servants are hired based on their unique qualifications and not because they are the mayor’s brother.”

Lerner said the approval of the city conflict of interest board would be required, but “even with a waiver, the appointment of the mayor’s close relative does not inspire public confidence”.

On CNN, Adams said the board would “make the determination and we have a great system here in the city”.

“But let me be clear on this. My brother is qualified for the position. Number one, he will be in charge of my security, which is extremely important to me in a time when we see an increase in white supremacy and hate crimes. I have to take my security in a very serious way.

“But at the same time, I need that right balance. I don’t want the people of this city to believe that their mayor is not approachable, and he’s not willing to engage.

“I took the subway system on my day one in office and those are the types of things that I’m going to do. My brother has a community affairs background [and is] a 20-year retired veteran from the police department. I need someone that I trust around me … and I trust my brother deeply.”

Sewell, the new police commissioner, made headlines of her own when she said reforms announced by Alvin Bragg, the city’s new top prosecutor, aiming to decriminalise minor crimes including resisting arrest, raised concerns “about the implications to [the safety of] police officers, the safety of the public and justice for the victims”.

“I have strongly recommended to the Manhattan district attorney not to go forward with a policy that treats felony gunpoint robberies of our commercial establishments as misdemeanor shoplifting offenses,” Sewell wrote in a widely leaked letter to police offices.

Adams has also vowed to keep New York public schools open for in-person teaching during the Omicron Covid wave and is pushing companies to abandon “remote working” and return workers to office jobs, for the sake of small business.

On Wednesday, Adams said “low-skill workers, my cooks, my dishwashers, my messengers, my shoe-shine people, those who work at Dunkin’ Donuts” did not possess “academic skills to sit in a corner office”.

That provoked a backlash from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Bronx congresswoman and leading national progressive.

“The suggestion that any job is ‘low skill’,” Ocasio-Cortez said, “is a myth perpetuated by wealthy interests to justify inhumane working conditions, little [or] no healthcare, and low wages.”

In a statement to the Guardian on Saturday, Ravi Mangla, spokesman for the New York Working Families party, said: “Adams ran as a working-class candidate. And after weeks of cozying up to corporate executives, we’re waiting for him to turn his attention to the everyday people who keep the city running.

“What we don’t want is a return to the failed policing models of the past, when communities are asking for real supports and services to get through [the Covid-19] crisis.”