By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors were expected to unseal an indictment against New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday, after a long-running criminal investigation that has sent the largest U.S. city’s government into turmoil.
It remained unclear whether Adams would be arrested or self-surrender, and when he may appear in court. A federal government vehicle was seen outside the mayor’s Gracie Mansion residence on Manhattan’s Upper East Side on Thursday morning, according to a Reuters witness.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that federal agents had searched Gracie Mansion early in the morning.
Adams, a Democrat who would become the first of the city’s 110 mayors to be criminally charged while in office, said in a video statement on Wednesday night that he expected to be charged – and that the accusations would be “entirely false, based on lies.”
The exact charges Adams faces remain uncertain. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan, which brought the charges, declined to comment on Wednesday after the New York Times and other outlets reported that Adams had been indicted by a grand jury, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.
In his video message, Adams vowed to remain in office while fighting any charges, defying calls from other Democratic politicians to resign.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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