ebony temple lux travel

Ebony Temple Lux Travel

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We specialize in custom curated experiences that cater to the commitment to excellence. Our agency delivers unparalleled service and attention to detail, every time.

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Create group, darreca leftridge, ebony temple lux travel, mcn canada's wonderland, oct 3, 2024 to oct 6, 2024, toronto, canada, welcome to mcn's trip to canada's wonderland 2024 adventure.

Breathtaking Views : Start this adventure off with an amazing day trip to Niagara Falls! Start with a trip to view the falls close up, then enjoy an amazing lunch before exploring downtown Niagara. Then the group will head back to Toronto for group dinner. 

Thrills Beyond Imagination : Brace yourself for spine-tingling roller coasters that'll have you screaming with delight, and gravity-defying rides that will leave you wanting more.

Halloween Haunt : Explore a world of horror with a variety of attractions, from entertaining shows to Leviathan, ensuring fun for everyone in the group.

Endless Fun in the Sun :  It's not just about the rides; soak up the sun in beautifully landscaped gardens, enjoy amazing food, and make a splash in the park's refreshing new Splash Works slide adventure to feature zero-gravity wall .

Bond with the Best :  Connect with like-minded thrill-seekers and create international lasting memories with a community of adventure enthusiasts who share your love for fun and excitement.

Get ready to join us for a weekend packed with heart-pounding adventure, endless laughter, and unforgettable moments. Don't miss out on this epic trip to Canada's Wonderland & Niagara Falls, where every twist, turn, and flip is a story waiting to be told. Secure your spot now and let's make this journey one for the books!  

What will be included in the itinerary:

• Hotel- included
• Insurance- included
• Day Trip to Niagara Falls- included
• Flight- can be included
• Park Tickets- Add on option

   What's Not Available As An Option:

• Meals (food or drink)
• Transportation (Uber & Lyft)
• Day 1 : Arrive in Toronto, Canada. Catch Uber or Lyft to an amazing hotel right by Canada's Wonderland!  Check into airport and meet up with other members to catch rides together
• Day 2: Spend the day exploring Niagara falls, downtown Niagara and have lunch with a view
• Day 3: Hi t Canada's Wonderland for an amazing fun filled day with the MCN crew
• Day 4: Explore the city before checking out and heading back to the airport to fly to to US

Cancellation policy:

Available packages, registration fee unavailable as of july 31, 2024, $25.00 deposit: $25.00 per person.

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Beyond travel: how black tomato ignites a passion for storytelling through immersive experiences.

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Black Tomato uses in-house Travel Experts to assist in the itinerary-building process for customers.

While solo travel can provide a fascinating perspective on the world around you, sometimes it’s best to leave the planning to the experts—and few companies exemplify this as well as Black Tomato. Officially founded in 2005, this esteemed travel company sets themselves apart from competitors through a set of carefully-curated itineraries that value memorable experiences, opting to provide participants with a truly unique array of activities rather than just check off the typical tourist sites.

Since its initial launch, the company has compiled a diverse array of excursions that range from culinary deep dives across Morocco to adventures in the frigid depths of Chilean Patagonia—and best of all, each trip contributes to Black Tomato’s efforts to protect our planet from further harm, with company initiatives spanning from purchasing carbon offsets to aiding in reforestation efforts. For Forbes , co-founder Tom Marchant provides insight into what makes Black Tomato unique from other travel companies as well as some of the recent developments within family and group travel across the industry.

What are some of the core competencies that set Black Tomato apart from other tour companies?

Everything we do is driven by our values as a company as our mission is to create remarkable experiences that thoughtfully connect our clients to the world, inspiring them to explore it with curiosity, humility and a sense of wonder. Creating remarkable travel moments and rare experiences that inspire is central to Black Tomato’s DNA, and our innovation is fueled in part by extensive research conducted by our team and in creative collaboration with our vast network of partners around the world. As a travel-obsessed group, we are constantly seeking out these extraordinary experiences through boots-on-the-ground research, identifying the best guides and local experts and always test-driving ourselves to ensure they are inspiring, thoughtful, seamlessly delivered and smartly cadenced within an itinerary.

Tell us about Black Tomato's family and group travel offerings.

Multi-generational family travel is one of the most important segments of travelers at Black Tomato and one that we have significant expertise in creatively concepting and executing. Since our founding in 2005, our employees’ families at Black Tomato have grown along with our many returning clients. Multi-generational family travel now accounts for nearly 60% of our bookings.

To captivate this burgeoning segment of our business, we’re constantly looking for innovative new ways to capture the imaginations of family travelers with itineraries and experiences designed to inspire. As with everything we do, we track booking trends and listen to our client’s specific needs and desires, which in turn help shape our offerings. In early 2021, we saw firsthand with our own families and our clients, that one painful vestige of those locked-down lives was the increasing reliance of children being glued to screens, stemming from a combination of long months of homeschooling, shuttered lives and inability to travel and see the world, which in turn made families experience-deprived.

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As multi-generational family travel in 2021 accounted for over 40% of our business, we saw a space to innovate and grow. While it was ticking along behind the scenes and started taking shape two years prior in 2019, we launched Take Me on a Story to unearth meaningful experiences that engage children and reignite a passion for learning. The collection debuted with five immersive itineraries inspired by beloved children’s stories set in destinations that form the backdrop to these iconic tales. Many of these were stories we collectively read together when hunkered down inspiring us to bring these fanciful worlds and tales to life, whether swapping hedgehog for mallet on the croquet lawn during an interactive tea party inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , learning survival skills, dog-mushing and listening for the Call of the Wild in Alaska or trekking through Greece for our soon-to-launch Hercules itinerary.

Why did Black Tomato choose to launch Hercules for their latest TMOAS adaptation? Why now?

We believe that Greek mythology has a unique ability to captivate children, sparking their imaginations whilst teaching valuable life lessons around courage, perseverance and humility through its powerful storytelling—values that I hope to impart to my own daughters. Greece holds a special personal memory in my heart—I’ve shared unforgettable moments there with my girls and am thrilled to undertake this adventure in a place they love while helping other families create their own treasured memories ahead.

The trend of clients seeking out educative experiences outside of the classroom continues to bubble, and this new epic pilgrimage is designed to celebrate the many life lessons Greek mythology presents while igniting children’s curiosity for the world through the ancient hero’s journey.

If you could pick a trip or destination based on a great book, where would you go and what book?

My favorite books capture a sense of place. Pretty much all of Hemingway is utterly inspiring in the way that Hemingway takes readers into the very soul of a place, but in particular, The Sun Also Rises stands out for me. The spirit of Paris and Spain that he captures in his writing is utterly electric and true to each destination.

Why are literary-inspired experiences important to Black Tomato?

Literature is about escapism, and so is travel, and there is a compelling way to connect the two. In so much great literature spanning decades from classics to more recently, the setting—or in many cases multiple destinations—is such a powerful component that subliminally, even without realizing it, it makes you want to immerse yourself in these places and with these people from wide-ranging cultures and lifeways. For us, it’s all about planting the seeds in the minds of people who want to travel this way and bringing these experiences to life powerfully and authentically. These are important inspiration points and there’s a real joy in bringing these to life for us and sharing them with others.

What has the feedback from guests been in response to these trips?

The feedback has been extraordinary and exactly what we hoped it would be in inspiring future generations of readers and parents alike. Seeing literature stoke this passion for travel is truly meaningful for us and being able to immerse families ‘behind the pages’ has brought excitement, inspiration and thrills so these coming to fruition and delivering more than what is expected is hugely gratifying.

Crete is the largest of the Greek Islands.

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From luxury travel to illegal donations, the corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been charged with accepting luxury travel and illegal campaign donations from Turkish nationals. In 2022, he became the second Black person elected NYC mayor. Now, this indictment unveiled on Thursday has the potential to derail his political career read more

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is in hot water. On Thursday (September 26), he became the first sitting New York City mayor to be indicted after United States prosecutors charged him with corruption.

Adams, a former police captain, has denied any wrongdoing, calling the charges against him “entirely false” and “based on lies”. He is facing five separate criminal counts, including bribery and fraud.

Who is Eric Adams? What is he accused of? What happens next? Let’s take a look.

Who is Eric Adams?

Eric Adams, 64, took charge of New York City – the US’ largest city – in 2022, becoming the second Black person to be elected New York mayor.

The Democrat has previously served as an officer in the New York City Transit Police. He joined the New York City police department in 1984 and retired in 2006 with the rank of captain.

As per The Guardian, Adams, who was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, has often talked about his impoverished upbringing. He said he joined the New York City police department to reform the police force after being beaten by cops when he was 15.

In 2006, Adams became the New York state senator. He has also served as Brooklyn borough president.

As New York City mayor, he adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards homeless people sleeping in subway cars, increasing police presence in the city’s subway system, reported Al Jazeera.

Adams has had a controversial political career.

Now, he is facing criminal charges that have the potential to derail his political career in the future.

What are the charges against him?

Adams is facing five federal charges, including wire fraud and bribery. US prosecutors have accused him of “conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal programme bribery, and to receive campaign contributions by foreign nationals”, two counts of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national and bribery.

In a 57-page indictment, US prosecutors allege that before and during his term as the New York mayor, Adams “sought and accepted improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him”.

According to the prosecutors, the Democrat took trips to France, India, China, Sri Lanka, Hungary, Ghana and Turkey that were fully or partly paid by people who wanted to buy his influence in the city government, reported Associated Press (AP).

The indictment alleges that Adams accepted free travel from a Turkish airline worth tens of thousands of dollars when he was Brooklyn borough president. It says Adams paid $600 (over Rs 50,000) for a two-day visit at a luxury suite in the St. Regis hotel in Istanbul, whose actual cost was $7,000 (Rs 5.9 lakh).

Prosecutors claim that the Democrat accepted more than $100,000 (Rs 83.6 lakh) in luxury travel.

“I want to be clear, these upgrades and freebies were not part of some frequent flyer or benefits programme available to the general public. This was a multiyear scheme to buy favour from a single New York City official on the rise,” US Attorney Damian Williams said at a news conference, as per AP.

For his 2021 mayoral campaign, Adams allegedly sought campaign contributions from Turkish sources. The indictment accuses him of collecting illegal donations to his campaigns through “straw” donors.

American law bans foreign citizens from donating to US political candidates.

According to the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, a Turkish official helped facilitate “many straw donations” for Adams’ mayoral run.

The NYC mayor is accused of using straw donors – who used to funnel money from another source – to hide the source of funds. It is alleged that Adams at times created “fake paper trails” that suggested he paid, or intended to pay, for the gifts.

Prosecutors say that by covering up his illegal contributions, Adams’s 2021 mayoral campaign received over $10 million in matching public funds, reported The Guardian.

In exchange, Adams allegedly pressured an official from New York’s fire department to allow the new high-rise Turkish consular building to open in time for Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s visit in September 2021, despite safety concerns. The indictment alleges that the mayor did it at the behest of a Turkish diplomat.

The indictment claims a Turkish official told Adams it was “his turn to repay” him. “After Adams intervened, the skyscraper opened as requested by the Turkish official,” it says.

Adams allegedly informed the diplomat when the Fire Department gave a nod for the opening of the building. “You are a true friend of Turkey,” the diplomat responded, the prosecutors claim.

The indictment was unsealed Thursday morning after federal agents searched the mayor’s official residence, Gracie Mansion, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. It comes after months of investigation by federal prosecutors, who have also been looking into Adams’ inner circle.

Will Eric Adams resign?

There have been calls for Adams to resign as the New York City mayor since the indictment was made public.

New York’s US Congressional Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is among those asking him to step down.

I do not see how Mayor Adams can continue governing New York City. The flood of resignations and vacancies are threatening gov function. Nonstop investigations will make it impossible to recruit and retain a qualified administration. For the good of the city, he should resign.… — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 25, 2024

Adams has denied the charges and dismissed calls to resign. “I put the people of New York before party and politics. Now, If I am charged, many may say I should resign because I cannot manage the city while fighting the case. Make no mistake, you elected me to lead this city and lead it, I will,” the NYC mayor said in his statement.

Rejecting the charges against him, Adams said in a pre-recorded video, “I will fight these injustices with every ounce of my strength and my spirit.”

Voices have emerged in defence of the NYC mayor, claiming he is being targeted over his stance on the migrant problem in the city.

I don’t know whether Eric Adams @ericadamsfornyc is guilty or innocent. He does, however, deserve the presumption of innocence. I do know that Eric loudly spoke the truth on the migrant problem in NYC and what the consequences would be for New Yorkers and the country. Doing so… https://t.co/0xEWYaQ6ps — Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) September 26, 2024

What next for Eric Adams?

Adams is slated to appear in court on Friday at noon Eastern Time (9.30 pm IST).

While he has resisted calls to step down, the NYC mayor can be forced to do so. New York State Governor Kathy Hochul has the power to remove the mayor from office.

She said in a statement that she will “review my options and obligations as the Governor of New York.”

“I expect the Mayor to take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well-served by their leaders,” Hochul added.

If found guilty, Adams could go to jail for decades. The wire fraud has a maximum sentence of 20 years, while the bribery count carries a sentence of 10 years in prison.

He could face five years in prison for seeking foreign campaign donations and another five years for conspiracy.

In the short term, the case is expected to complicate his 2025 mayoral bid. Several Democratic politicians, including New York City comptroller Brad Lander and state Senator Zellnor Myrie, plan to contest against Adams.

It will be a challenging election for him if Adams stays in the race.

With inputs from agencies

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Highlights From the Arraignment of Eric Adams on Bribery and Fraud Charges

The New York City mayor pleaded not guilty to all five counts and was released on his own recognizance. Investigators seized the phones of Ingrid Lewis-Martin, his chief adviser.

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Matthew Haag Hurubie Meko and William K. Rashbaum

Here is the latest on the mayor’s indictment.

Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty on Friday to five felony counts , including bribery and fraud charges, in a Lower Manhattan courtroom. He is accused of taking more than $100,000 in illegal gifts in exchange for using his political influence to help Turkey.

During an arraignment that lasted less than 20 minutes, Mr. Adams said he understood his rights and declined to have the 57-page indictment against him read aloud in court. Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker ordered Mr. Adams not to discuss the case with any witnesses and released him on his own recognizance. She did not require him to surrender his passport.

When he was not addressing the judge, Mr. Adams, wearing a dark suit, sat quietly at the defense table next to his lawyer Alex Spiro . Mr. Adams must return to court for another hearing on Wednesday. Mr. Spiro said he would ask then for the charges to be dismissed.

After the hearing, Mr. Spiro spoke outside the courthouse and repeated Mr. Adams’s claim that he was the victim of a targeted investigation. While supporters and hecklers chanted, Mr. Adams stood by silently, and then entered a black S.U.V. with his lawyer and was whisked away.

Also on Friday, state and federal investigators met Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the mayor’s chief adviser , at Kennedy International Airport as she returned from overseas and seized her phones. She was served with a grand jury subpoena, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Mr. Adams has been charged with bribery conspiracy, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. He is accused of orchestrating a “straw donor” scheme to generate illicit matching funds for his mayoral campaign, in which overseas contributors funneled donations through people in the United States, according to prosecutors.

Federal law prohibits U.S. candidates from soliciting or receiving foreign donations. The city’s matching-funds program matches the first $250 of a resident’s donation eight to one, and the Adams campaign received more than $10 million in matching funds.

In the five-count indictment unsealed on Thursday , federal prosecutors detailed years of graft that involved Mr. Adams accepting free or heavily discounted international flights and plush overseas accommodations, starting when he was Brooklyn borough president and continuing after he became mayor in 2022.

“I ask New Yorkers to wait to hear our defense,” Mr. Adams said. He vowed to stay in office and to fight the charges.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove the mayor , said in a statement Thursday evening that she had carefully reviewed the indictment and urged Mr. Adams to consider whether he was still able to effectively serve New Yorkers.

Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who brought the charges, said on Thursday that Mr. Adams had been “showered” with gifts that he knew were illegal and tried to conceal.

In return, prosecutors said, Mr. Adams helped Turkish officials with issues in New York City. Most notably, Mr. Adams in 2021 pressured officials at the Fire Department to permit a new Turkish consulate building in Manhattan , despite safety problems, the indictment said.

If Mr. Adams is convicted of all five counts in the indictment , the maximum penalty would be 45 years in prison. Under the federal sentencing guidelines, he would most likely receive far less.

The judge in the case, Dale E. Ho , set a second hearing for Wednesday morning to discuss the trial schedule and other issues.

Here’s what else to know:

The prosecutor: Mr. Williams , 44, already had a compelling biography, but the first mayoral indictment in modern New York City history has added an astonishing new chapter to his life’s story.

Potential next steps : If Mr. Adams were to resign or be removed from office, New York City’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams, would become mayor. He has been preparing behind the scenes.

The indictment: Strange, amusing and troubling vignettes abound in Mr. Adams’s indictment. Read 10 of the allegations against him .

The Turkevi Center: At the center of the charges is an ornate, 35-story building in Midtown Manhattan that Turkey opened to great fanfare in 2021 to showcase its international ambitions.

An array of inquiries: Four federal investigations have engulfed the Adams administration and high-ranking officials.

William K. Rashbaum Dana Rubinstein and Jeffery C. Mays

Agents seize phones from Adams’s top adviser and subpoena her.

Investigators on Friday seized the phones of Mayor Eric Adams’s chief adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, searched her Brooklyn home and served her with a grand jury subpoena, her lawyer said.

“Ingrid Lewis-Martin has been served with a subpoena from the Southern District of New York and her phones were given to the New York County district attorney’s office,” the lawyer, Arthur L. Aidala, said in a statement. “She will cooperate fully with any and all investigations,” he said, adding that Ms. Lewis-Martin was “not the target of any case of which we are aware.”

Ms. Lewis-Martin, speaking Friday evening on Mr. Aidala’s radio show, denied any wrongdoing.

“I don’t know anything,” she said. “I’ve done nothing. And I don’t think that there is anything to know.”

Later, apparently referring to herself and the mayor, she said that no one is perfect, “but we are not thieves.”

Ms. Lewis-Martin was served with the grand jury subpoena and told about the search on Friday when she landed at Kennedy International Airport, having returned from a vacation in Japan, and was met by two sets of investigators, one state and one federal.

The actions appear to be tied to two different investigations, though information about the morning’s events and the nature of the state inquiry was preliminary. Several people with knowledge of the matter confirmed that the two sets of investigators approached Ms. Lewis-Martin after she passed through customs, served her with the subpoena and seized her phones.

Tracking Charges and Investigations in Eric Adams’s Orbit

Four federal corruption inquiries have reached into the world of Mayor Eric Adams of New York. Here is a closer look at the charges against Mr. Adams and how people with ties to him are related to the inquiries.

The moves came shortly before Mr. Adams was arraigned in federal court in Lower Manhattan on charges of bribery and wire fraud. The indictment from the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York accuses the mayor of soliciting and receiving illegal campaign donations from foreign nationals and accepting bribes in exchange for official acts. Mr. Adams has pleaded not guilty.

Ms. Lewis-Martin, who is considered the mayor’s second-in-command, has been friends with Mr. Adams for roughly 40 years and has described herself as “his sister ordained by God.” A Christian chaplain, she has been his top aide since 2006, when she managed his successful campaign for a State Senate seat.

Colleagues describe her as the mayor’s political enforcer — she is known by the nickname “the Lioness of City Hall” — a characterization she does not shy away from.

“I’m not Michelle Obama,” she told City and State in 2022. “When they go low? We drill for oil.”

When Mr. Adams was elected mayor, several supporters advised him not to bring Ms. Lewis-Martin with him to City Hall, The New York Times reported last year , according to six people with knowledge of the conversations.

Ms. Lewis-Martin was seen as combative when she worked for Mr. Adams in the Brooklyn borough president’s office and as often pushing ethical boundaries. Others worried that she would have too much power and not enough responsibility.

The federal subpoena served on Ms. Lewis-Martin seeks information related to the investigation that produced the corruption charges against the mayor, one of the people with knowledge of the matter said. The state investigation apparently grew out of an inquiry by the Manhattan district attorney’s office that led to the indictment last year of Eric Ulrich , who had been the mayor’s senior adviser and buildings commissioner, for taking bribes.

When Mr. Ulrich was still in the administration, he and Ms. Lewis-Martin were considered friends, a former administration official said. Mr. Ulrich was a frequent presence in Ms. Lewis-Martin’s office and when he was indicted, she was upset, the official said.

Though she is not named in one of the indictments against Mr. Ulrich and three co-defendants, Ms. Lewis-Martin appears to play a small role in it. The charges accuse Mr. Ulrich of using his position to benefit his co-defendants in exchange for bribes.

The indictment features a person identified only as Mr. Adams’s “chief adviser” meeting and speaking by telephone with the co-defendants as they tried to get City Hall to help with regulatory issues affecting their business interests.

The indictment did not accuse the chief adviser of wrongdoing.

Shortly before noon on Friday, Ms. Lewis-Martin was approached at the airport by the two sets of investigators after her flight had landed, the people said. The investigators from the district attorney’s office, who were accompanied by others from the city’s Department of Investigation both at the airport and during the search of Ms. Lewis-Martin’s Brooklyn home, seized her phones and told her they were simultaneously searching her house, the people said.

The investigators allowed her to call her lawyer, and she surrendered her phones in response to a warrant.

During the radio show Friday evening, Ms. Lewis-Martin described the investigators who took her phones as “very polite,” even when she got “a little vociferous.”

One of the investigators, she said, “explained to me, ‘Look, we don’t want to make this more than what it needs to be. We don’t want to have to arrest you for being noncompliant. And, you know, we don’t want to make this bigger.’ And he was very nice, and I apologized to him for being impolite, and I requested to speak with my attorney.”

At about the same time, the federal investigators served her with the grand jury subpoena, which had been issued by one of the prosecutors overseeing the investigation into the mayor, one of the people said.

Representatives of the U.S. attorney’s office, the district attorney’s office and the Department of Investigation all declined to comment.

On Friday afternoon, reporters assembled in front of Ms. Lewis-Martin’s small redbrick house, located in East Flatbush.

Amram Amsalem, 61, a neighbor who said he was “good friends” with Ms. Lewis-Martin and her family, said the search earlier in the day had taken him by surprise.

“I feel bad, to tell you the truth, I feel bad,” Mr. Amsalem said. “It’s very nice people.”

Lola Fadulu contributed reporting.

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Emma Fitzsimmons

Lewis-Martin has long been one of the mayor’s closest aides, but she has been less visible at City Hall recently. As the federal investigations intensified, she was not at two recent news conferences held by the mayor.

When Adams was elected, several supporters advised him not to bring Lewis-Martin with him to City Hall, we reported last year , citing six people with knowledge of the conversations. She was seen as combative when she worked for Adams in the Brooklyn borough president's office and often pushed ethical boundaries.

William Rashbaum

Lewis-Martin’s lawyer, Arthur L. Aidala, confirmed the subpoena and search in a statement. “She will cooperate fully with any and all investigations,” he said, adding that Lewis-Martin was “not the target of any case of which we are aware.”

Lewis-Martin returned Friday morning from a vacation in Japan and was met at Kennedy International Airport by two sets of criminal investigators, one from the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the other from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, the people familiar with the matter said.

The federal investigators served her with a grand jury subpoena related to the investigation into the mayor, which led to his indictment this week on bribery charges.

The investigators from the district attorney’s office told her they were searching her home and seized her phone, the people said. One of the people said that office's investigation appears related to the indictment last year of Adams’s building commissioner, Eric Ulrich, on corruption charges.

Lewis-Martin is Adams’s top adviser and one of his longest serving political confidantes and friends. Adams often calls her his sister, and she has nearly unlimited reach at City Hall.

Political observers had found it strange that Lewis-Martin’s name had not come up in the multiple federal investigations being conducted into Adams and his inner circle, given that she has been close with the mayor for decades and worked both on his campaign and in his administration.

Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Adams’s chief adviser, had her phone seized Friday and was served with a grand jury subpoena by federal and state investigators, in what appear to be two different investigations, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Adams, who has insisted that he plans to stay focused on running the city, is resuming what is, for him, a typical schedule after his arraignment. He plans to visit a birthday celebration at a senior center in Harlem, meet with an advisory committee and host an “ethnic media engagement” with an Italian American newspaper. The City Hall press corps were not invited.

Jeffery C. Mays and Stefanos Chen

Business leaders backed Adams. Now they wait to learn his fate.

When Mayor Eric Adams took office, the city’s business community breathed a sigh of relief.

For eight years, business leaders had railed against the liberal ideology and policies of Mayor Bill de Blasio. He won office on a promise to end income inequality, reverse the economic policies of his predecessor — the business friendly billionaire Michael R. Bloomberg — and thrived on criticizing the city’s business elite.

Mr. Adams, on the other hand, spoke about how important wealthy taxpayers were to New York’s coffers and how companies provided middle-class residents with good jobs. He often cited the city’s healthy bond rating as one of his major accomplishments.

The connection between Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Adams was on full display in the months after Mr. Adams’s victory in the Democratic primary.

Mr. Bloomberg released a video backing Mr. Adams before the general election. A day after the endorsement, at a conference filled with the former mayor’s fellow billionaires, Mr. Adams declared that “New York will no longer be anti-business.”

“It was a reversal,” said Kathy Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group. “He took Bloomberg as a mentor and embraced the policies that are most important to businesses and their employees.”

But since Mr. Adams was indicted on charges of bribery, conspiracy, fraud and soliciting improper foreign campaign donations, much of the business and labor community has fallen silent with worry. Mr. Adams appeared in a courtroom in Lower Manhattan on Friday and entered a plea of not guilty on five counts. Representatives for the city did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

District Council 37, the city’s largest public employee union, of which Mr. Adams’s mother was once a member, endorsed him in 2021 and called him a “friend of labor.” But on Thursday a spokeswoman declined to comment on the criminal charges.

The Real Estate Board of New York, the industry’s main lobbying arm, did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did the service employees union, 32BJ SEIU, which has been a frequent presence at the mayor’s events.

The Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, the influential union that represents hotel and casino workers in New York and New Jersey, gave a measured response.

“It’s too early to pass judgment or make any political decisions other than to say our union will continue to do what we always do, which is work with the mayor and city government on issues important to our members,” a spokesman said in a statement.

The mayor’s indictment leaves many in the business world without a clear candidate in the next election and stirs the fear that a progressive candidate won’t cater to them as Mr. Adams has. Four candidates have announced runs for mayor and all are considered left of Mr. Adams.

“Mayor Adams is one of the few elected officials at his level in the entire nation who fundamentally understands technology,” said Julie Samuels, the president and chief executive of Tech:NYC, a trade group that represents tech companies ranging from Google and Meta to startups.

The alternatives have not inspired confidence among her members. “Most of them don’t even know who a lot of these candidates are,” she said.

The mayor held 14 town halls in conjunction with the Partnership for New York City to meet with employees at various companies. After the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Adams called for workers to return to the office even though there was a push toward hybrid work-from-home schedules.

And the relationship with Mr. Bloomberg continued when Mr. Adams entered City Hall. Sprinkled throughout Mr. Adams’s schedules for 2023 was a notation “Call with Mike” — an apparent reference to Mr. Bloomberg, who regularly spoke with Mr. Adams. Stu Loeser, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, declined to comment, but a person familiar with the thinking of some of Mr. Bloomberg’s advisers said they had “high hopes” for Mr. Adams.

Mr. Adams was not afraid to employ policies that are unpopular with progressives but that business leaders saw as key to maintaining a quality of life that is conducive to business, such as clearing homeless encampments and flooding the subways with police officers in response to crime.

One business leader in the world of Wall Street who asked not to be named to preserve relationships, said an email was circulating Thursday morning seeking to recruit a candidate for mayor from within the business community.

The candidates for mayor so far are: Brad Lander, the city comptroller; Zellnor Myrie, a state senator from Brooklyn; Jessica Ramos, a state senator from Queens; and Scott M. Stringer, the former comptroller.

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is also c onsidering running in a special election if Mr. Adams were to resign. Jumaane Williams, the public advocate who made a name for himself by speaking out against discriminatory policing, would become mayor if Mr. Adams resigned or was removed from office and would likely run in the special election to complete the term.

Some critics of City Hall don’t see Mr. Adams’s pro-business leanings as a good thing.

Olivia Leirer, co-director of New York Communities for Change, a progressive advocacy organization that focuses on issues such as global warming and affordable housing, said that the mayor has sided with the real estate lobby when it comes to enforcing a new climate law designed to reduce pollution from large buildings and that his policies on homelessness and crime are harmful.

“The business community may be happy that Eric Adams is sweeping all of the homeless people off our streets,” Ms. Leirer said. “But people who care about our communities know that housing and programs for youth are what actually support our communities and bring crime down in the long run.”

Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, said business leaders have sometimes expressed disappointment in Mr. Adams, such as with his handling of the city’s influx of more than 200,000 migrants. But many in the business sector remain more concerned about the possible alternatives to Mr. Adams. Under the Adams administration, New York City regained all of the nearly one million private sector jobs lost during the pandemic.

“There’s a concern that we have to start all over, at a time when we’re still very weak from Covid lockdowns,” Ms. Gelinas said.

The mayor’s indictment could also jeopardize some of his signature policies, including the so-called City of Yes zoning code amendments that could enable over 100,000 more homes to be added citywide.

On Wednesday, the City Planning Commission approved a version of the proposal, setting the stage for the City Council to vote on the changes in the next few months. Some fear that the upheaval at City Hall could make the plan a tougher sell.

“We can’t let what’s happening at Gracie Mansion distract from such a critical issue,” said Annemarie Gray, the executive director of Open New York, a nonprofit organization that supports new development.

City officials say the proposal is on the original timeline they created and they expect the City Council to vote on the plan this fall.

Gary Barnett, the president and founder of Extell Development, the real estate firm that helped reshape the strip of luxury condo skyscrapers in Manhattan known as Billionaires’ Row, said he was reserving judgment.

“I wish he could finish the job,” Mr. Barnett said, lamenting what the indictment could mean for the rest of Mr. Adams’s term as mayor. “It happens all the time that people are indicted and they are later declared innocent.”

Mr. Adams, surrounded by supporters in a defiant news conference outside of Gracie Mansion on Thursday, seemed intent on finishing his work, in spite of the serious criminal charges he was facing.

Asked who would be the liaison with the city’s business community in the wake of his indictment, the mayor did not hesitate to answer.

“When you say: ‘Who’s the point person that’s going to deal with the business community? Who’s going to deal with the business of running the city?’ The point person is Eric Adams,” the mayor said to cheers from his assembled supporters. “I’m the mayor of the City of New York.”

Dana Rubinstein contributed reporting.

Luke Broadwater

Adams’s lawyer says he flew like a congressman. But there are rules.

As part of Mayor Eric Adams’s defense against corruption allegations, his lawyer has compared his acceptance of heavily discounted international flights from Turkish Airlines to the kind of perks members of Congress receive.

“You know what they didn’t really explain to all of you? Those were upgrades. Those were upgrades on airlines with open seats,” Alex Spiro , Mr. Adams’ lawyer, told reporters in response to a five-count indictment unsealed on Thursday . “That’s what airlines do. They do it every day. They do it for V.I.P.s. They do it for congresspeople. They’re empty seats. It costs the airlines nothing.”

But while members of Congress do get some perks while booking flights, owing to their status as frequent fliers and government employees, there are strict ethics regulations prohibiting the acceptance of lavish gifts or engaging in a quid pro quo, which are the allegations against Mr. Adams.

Congressional offices have access to the City Pair Program , through which the federal government negotiates airline fares. Lawmakers use the program to book multiple flights on the same day, and then cancel some without penalty, because the congressional schedule changes frequently.

These are coach-level seats, but, often, if there are open seats in first class, the airline offers to upgrade the member of Congress for free.

“So many members of Congress, they either get the top-tier status, or by virtue of the kind of tickets they buy, they’re really always at the top for upgrades,” said Matthew Klint, who was an aide in two congressional offices and now writes about the travel industry .

Some travel and government reform activists have sought to crack down on the benefits , arguing they create a conflict of interest and benefit the airline industry, but they remain.

The Members’ Handbook states : “Free travel, mileage, discounts, upgrades, coupons, etc., awarded at the sole discretion of a company as a promotional award may be used at the discretion of the Member or the Member’s employee.”

It is, however, an ethically murky area, because a lawmaker can accept an upgrade only if such a benefit is available to other similarly situated individuals, meaning other frequent fliers.

If a member accepted upgrades not offered to others, that could violate the rules, said Kedric Payne, the senior director for ethics at the Campaign Legal Center and a former deputy chief counsel for the Office of Congressional Ethics.

“The key part is that they cannot be upgraded because they’re a member of Congress,” Mr. Payne said.

He said the current practice in Congress is quite different from the behavior described in the indictment against Mr. Adams.

Mr. Adams is accused of years of graft that involved accepting free or heavily discounted international flights and plush overseas accommodations, starting when he was Brooklyn borough president and continuing after he became mayor, and then using his influence to help Turkey.

“The Adams indictment is just so much broader than flight upgrades,” Mr. Payne said.

Fresh off a spate of resignations from his administration, Adams signed an executive order Thursday delineating that the deputy mayor for health and human services would take over the first deputy mayor's duties if she could not perform them or waived the right to do so.

The first deputy mayor, Sheena Wright, is one of the Adams administration officials whose devices were seized by federal authorities. An Adams spokeswoman denied that Wright was resigning, calling the executive order a “good governance” maneuver to “establish a clear line of succession” should both Adams and Wright be unavailable.

Dana Rubinstein

In less than 20 minutes, Eric Adams formally enters legal limbo.

It was just before 12:20 p.m. in New York City on Friday when Mayor Eric Adams, a newly arraigned federal criminal defendant, stood up, buttoned his suit jacket, smiled tightly at a court officer and left the courtroom.

The whole appearance before the magistrate judge had lasted fewer than 20 minutes.

Mr. Adams, in a dark suit, and his criminal defense lawyer, in a light gray one, sat side by side and otherwise unaccompanied at a table before Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker during the proceedings. The mayor’s security detail sat in a row behind him. The windows framed a view of Hudson Yards.

The mayor prefers to enter his press events to walkout music — typically “Empire State of Mind” by Alicia Keys and Jay-Z. But the courtroom in Lower Manhattan was pin-drop quiet. And the mayor sat stone-faced.

Speaking slowly and in a serious tone, the judge explained the mayor’s constitutional rights and asked whether he understood them.

“Yes I do, your honor.”

She read out the charges, including wire fraud, soliciting and accepting foreign donations and bribery. She asked whether he had read the indictment.

“Yes, I have, your honor.”

Ten minutes into the hearing, she asked for his plea.

“I am not guilty, your honor.”

The mayor had been arraigned.

Maggie Haberman

political memo

The parallels between an indicted mayor and an indicted former president.

It was not long after Eric Adams became mayor of New York City in 2022 that the comparisons with Donald J. Trump started.

Mr. Adams called himself the Biden of Brooklyn, but his style was far more similar to the man President Biden defeated in the 2020 election.

Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Adams has repeatedly bashed the press coverage he has received since he took office. “We have to tell our news publications: Enough, enough, enough,” said Mr. Adams, who is a former police officer and the city’s second Black mayor and who created his own newsletter to circumvent the local media covering him, in late 2022.

Both try to demonstrate what Mr. Adams has called “swagger,” a macho patina of toughness. Both have projected law-and-order strength while surrounding themselves with people under legal scrutiny of their own.

And both have insisted they’re victims of political efforts to prosecute them for their stances on issues, prosecutions that they insist are the real corruption, not their own actions.

Mr. Adams will now test how far he can take the Trump playbook in seeking to remain in office. It remains to be seen whether the forces of political gravity that usually come with an indictment will drag him down. Mr. Trump will face a similar test in less than six weeks of whether his criminal travails will prevent him from winning the presidential election despite broad support within his party.

Mr. Trump was raised in Queens but nurtured on the Brooklyn political-machine relationships that his father, a successful real estate developer, had forged to help make building projects happen. Mr. Adams came through a different iteration of the Brooklyn machine, one that formed from an emerging Black political power base.

In both cases, they have been shape-shifters. Mr. Trump is a Republican-turned-Democrat-turned-independent-turned-Republican who once favored universal health care and was later slow to disavow support from the white supremacist David Duke. Mr. Adams is a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Democrat who had been under investigation previously and who admired Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, who has promoted antisemitism.

Both have been avatars of transactional politics, willing to assume different positions from what they held before, letting business elites and political centrists see them as bulwarks against what those elites viewed as creeping progressivism.

One Democratic strategist working in New York politics, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the circumstances surrounding both men, asked sarcastically which was more worrisome to their backers: Progressivism or corruption?

Mr. Trump on Thursday gave himself a platform on the Adams case, inadvertently or not. The indictment against the mayor was announced shortly before Mr. Trump, himself convicted of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal and indicted three other times, held a news conference in Trump Tower.

For Mr. Adams, election to New York City’s highest office — a powerful role often described as the second-toughest job in America, rivaling the presidency — came a year after the city was an epicenter of the coronavirus, of Black Lives Matter protests that sometimes erupted into violence, of crime spikes amid pandemic shutdowns.

The Democratic Party was pitted against itself with candidates who had staked out deeply liberal positions on a range of issues, particularly policing, and Mr. Adams was seen by centrists, some Republicans and the city’s business interests as an antidote. It took until the end of his first year in office for the mayor’s image as the new face of the Democratic Party to start to fray.

For his part, Mr. Trump left office after his efforts to cling to power culminated in an attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. His popularity among the Republican base in the aftermath never eroded to the extent that many Washington hoped it would. The four times Mr. Trump was indicted in 2023, in the span of a few months, merely made him politically stronger within his party.

This week, Mr. Trump’s advisers were privately delighted that there was another public official facing a corruption indictment, creating a news story about legal travails that didn’t involve the former president and giving him an opportunity to claim that the system was corrupt.

That the Justice Department is going after him for political reasons has been a constant refrain of Mr. Trump’s for more than two years. Mr. Adams has said versions of the same thing, suggesting that the investigative focus on him is racist.

And while there have been some calls for Mr. Adams to resign, many Democrats are either averting their gazes or offering muted criticisms. It is not the full-throated defense that Mr. Trump has received from elected officials in his own party, but it is still different than what might have existed years ago for a scandal-tainted mayor.

One of the most vocal defenses of Mr. Adams came, not surprisingly, from Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump defended Mr. Adams at his own news conference on Thursday, baselessly insisting that the mayor was indicted because he blasted the Biden administration over the migrant crisis that had strained city services, another refrain similar to Mr. Trump’s own political messaging. But Mr. Trump also conceded that he didn’t really know what the mayor had done and refused to acknowledge a question repeatedly asked by reporters about whether he would pardon the mayor if he returned to the White House.

“I will say this: I watched, about a year ago, when he talked about how the illegal migrants are hurting our city and the federal government should pay us, and we shouldn’t have to take them,” he said. “And I said, You know what? He’ll be indicted within a year. And I was exactly right, because that’s what we have. I said that he will be indicted because he did that. You take a look, that’s what they do. These are dirty players. These are bad people. They cheat and they do anything necessary. These are bad people.”

“I wish him luck,” Mr. Trump added.

Molly Longman

In his brief speech outside the courthouse, Alex Spiro, Adams's lawyer, said his client was innocent. “This case isn’t even a real case.”

We let the court know that next week we’ll be filing a motion to dismiss. We expect these charges to be dismissed. You all remember the Brian Benjamin case — similar shaky theory. That case was dismissed. Same prosecutors. Same theory. But the spectacle of this so exciting to them that they wanted to bring another one of these cases. This case isn’t even a real case.

“It’s the other government we should be disappointed in, bringing this case against the city mayor,” Spiro said, echoing Adams's criticism of the federal prosecutors who brought the case against him.

Hurubie Meko

Across the street from where Adams’s lawyer addressed the press, another well known New York figure, Arthur Aidala, stood watching. Aidala, known for being friends with Adams, is currently defending Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood mogul, who is facing sexual assault charges at the state courthouse down the street.

Adams has exited the courthouse. His lawyer is speaking, and Adams is standing alongside him.

After a short speech by his lawyer, barely audible over people shouting on the sidewalk around the courthouse, Adams entered a black van and left.

In a departure from his robust defense surrounded by religious leaders at a news conference yesterday, Adams was a man of few words during the court proceedings today. His responses were contained to primarily acknowledging the judge’s questions.

Wesley Parnell

As Adams pleaded not guilty in court, Jumaane Williams, the city's public advocate, who would become interim mayor should Adams resign or be removed, spoke to a small group of reporters at City Hall. Williams has stopped short of asking Adams to resign, but has urged him to release a plan explaining how he will govern under the crushing weight of federal charges.

“Deflection and trying to wave off what is happening is not a plan. That is something else,” Williams said. He added that it's "up to the mayor to present that plan and we want to give him the ability to do that -- that window just seems to be getting shorter and shorter."

Maria Cramer

Near the scrum of reporters waiting outside the courthouse for Adams to come out, a few onlookers chanted “Free Eric! Free Eric!” A man stared at them and yelled, “Lock him up!”

Adams's police detail exited the courtroom with him, and then the mayor was escorted to the clerk's office by marshals.

After the arraignment was over, the mayor stood up, buttoned his suit jacket, smiled tightly at the court officer, and left the courtroom, stone-faced.

Adams was released on his own recognizance, with the magistrate judge warning him that he had to return to court when required or he could face consequences, including jail time.

Next week’s hearing will be before the district judge assigned to the case, Dale Ho. It is scheduled for Wednesday. At that hearing, Judge Ho can be expected to ask the government to summarize the discovery in the case and, if the case goes to trial, to estimate how long the trial might be.

Adams’s lawyer would also have the opportunity to ask Judge Ho for an expedited trial, if that is what the mayor seeks.

After less than 20 minutes, the arraignment of Eric Adams has concluded. Escorted by U.S. marshals, Adams walks out of the courtroom.

Adams is due back in court next week, at which point his lawyer, Alex Spiro, said he will ask for the charges to be dismissed.

Prosecutors did not ask Adams to surrender his passport.

Judge Parker has ruled that Adams is to have no contact with any individual witness or others on a list to be provided by prosecutors concerning the “facts and circumstances” in the indictment. He will not be limited from communicating with them about “business or private family matters,” she said.

Prosecutors are asking that Adams not be allowed to have contact with witnesses or individuals named in the indictment. They said they were willing to confer with Adams’s lawyers to negotiate how he can communicate with “persons in the mayor’s family or members of the mayor’s staff,” who may know facts of the case.

Maia Coleman

Alex Spiro, Adams’s lawyer, has a long roster of celebrity clients.

When Mayor Eric Adams is arraigned Friday, he will be joined at the defense table by his lawyer Alex Spiro, who has become one of the country’s most famous trial lawyers.

Mr. Spiro made his name defending a long list of embattled celebrity clients, including Jay-Z , Alec Baldwin and, most recently, Elon Musk , for whom he serves as a personal lawyer.

Mr. Spiro graduated from Tufts University and then Harvard Law School. In 2008, he took a job as a prosecutor in Manhattan’s district attorney’s office, where he helped indict Rodney Alcala, a serial killer and onetime game show contestant. Mr. Spiro eventually turned to criminal defense.

Now a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Mr. Spiro joins Brendan R. McGuire and Boyd M. Johnson III, who have been representing the mayor. Mr. Spiro, who takes a more aggressive approach and came out swinging at prosecutors on Thursday, will handle the trial; Mr. McGuire and Mr. Johnson will coordinate legal strategy across the three other federal corruption investigations swirling around the mayor.

Mr. Spiro spent his early career defending professional athletes, including Aaron Hernandez , the former New England Patriots tight end, whom he helped represent in 2017 after he was accused of shooting two people in Boston. Mr. Hernandez was found not guilty of the killings, though he later hanged himself in prison while serving a life sentence on charges connected to a separate murder.

In the years since, Mr. Spiro has notched unlikely wins in high-profile cases involving billionaires and celebrities. In 2019, he defended Robert Kraft , the owner of the New England Patriots, who was charged with soliciting sex in Florida. The charges were dropped. This year, he helped defend Mr. Baldwin against charges of involuntary manslaughter related to a fatal shooting on the set of the movie “ Rust .” The case was dismissed in July.

More recently, Mr. Spiro has made headlines as Mr. Musk’s go-to lawyer, after successfully defending the billionaire in a high-profile defamation case in late 2019.

Emma G. Fitzsimmons

A divide emerges over whether Adams should resign.

As Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty on Friday to bribery and fraud charges , division emerged among New York City’s power brokers over whether he should resign.

A growing number of elected officials have pushed Mr. Adams, a Democrat, to step down, with Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York doing so on Friday. Other notable Democrats include Brad Lander, the city comptroller who is running for mayor, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

Still, others have called on Mr. Adams not to resign. The editorial boards at The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal called for the mayor to stay put. Some leaders in the business community, which has broadly supported Mr. Adams, are also reluctant to oust him.

“It is in the best interest of fairness — and the best interest of New York City — that Adams be allowed to present a defense while he continues to serve his term,” The New York Post’s board wrote on Thursday evening.

Mr. Adams, for his part, has insisted that he will remain in office and fight the charges. He has said that he did not commit any crimes and questioned the motivation of prosecutors.

Perhaps the most important voice in the debate is Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove the mayor . Ms. Hochul and Mr. Adams have been political allies, but she issued a terse statement on Thursday saying she was keeping her options open.

Ms. Hochul said the indictment was the “latest in a disturbing pattern of events that has, understandably, contributed to a sense of unease among many New Yorkers.”

“I expect the mayor to take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well served by their leaders,” she said.

Another key figure is Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the House minority leader, who said a jury would determine the mayor’s fate and that he was praying for the city.

Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker, also expressed concern over the seriousness of the allegations and the mayor’s ability to lead the city, but stopped short of urging him to resign.

The list of people calling on Mr. Adams to resign includes the City Council’s progressive caucus; John Liu, an influential state senator from Queens; Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president; and Representatives Nicole Malliotakis and Elise Stefanik , two Republicans from New York.

Several candidates who are running against Mr. Adams for mayor in next June’s Democratic primary have also urged him to resign, including Mr. Lander; Zellnor Myrie, a state senator from Brooklyn; and Scott Stringer, a former comptroller.

If Mr. Adams were to resign, Jumaane Williams , the city’s public advocate, would become acting mayor and set a date for a special election. Mr. Williams, a progressive Democrat from Brooklyn, has said that he is prepared to take the job, but he has not called on Mr. Adams to resign.

“With all this going on, can someone effectively run the government?” he said on NY1 on Friday morning . “Can he effectively rebuild the trust that’s being eroded, really minute by minute? That’s a question many of us are hoping the mayor will really ask himself.”

The judge presiding over the case against Adams has a history of fighting for civil liberties.

On Thursday, a little more than a year after the Senate confirmed Dale E. Ho as a federal judge in a 50-to-49 vote, he was thrust into the spotlight when he was randomly chosen to preside over the case against Mayor Eric Adams.

It will be a baptism by fire for a freshly minted judge with a sterling educational pedigree and a history of pointed remarks as a civil rights lawyer.

The indictment against Mr. Adams marked the first time in New York City’s modern history that a sitting mayor was charged with a crime. Prosecutors said Mr. Adams had for years — tracing back to his days as Brooklyn borough president — used his status to seek out “improper valuable benefits.”

Mr. Adams has refused to step down, even as other city leaders have called for his resignation. “I ask New Yorkers to wait and hear our defense,” he said in a defiant news conference on Thursday.

That defense, if Mr. Adams goes to trial, will be argued before Judge Ho.

Before joining the federal bench in Manhattan, Judge Ho supervised the American Civil Liberties Union’s voting rights litigation. He worked at the organization for about a decade and has argued in front of the Supreme Court twice, according to a biography on the organization’s website .

He was born in San Jose, Calif., in 1977 and graduated from Yale Law School in 2005. He clerked in the Southern District of New York, where he now presides himself, and at the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. Judge Ho has also worked at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.

President Biden submitted Judge Ho’s nomination to the Senate in 2021. It was nearly two years before he was confirmed, a time during which his work on voting rights and his public statements became points of contention between Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In a December 2021 response to a question from Senator Dick Durbin, chairman of the panel, Judge Ho said, “I recognize and regret that I have engaged in overheated rhetoric on social media.” He pledged to “maintain high standards of professional courtesy and respect in both formal and informal communications, in both public and private,” if he was confirmed.

He was confirmed largely along party lines , with Joe Manchin of West Virginia, an independent who was then a Democrat, opposing his confirmation , and Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, not voting.

In a statement after Judge Ho’s confirmation, Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, called him “one of the foremost election law, civil rights and voting rights experts in the country.”

“I am confident Dale Ho will follow the facts and administer justice fairly,” Mr. Schumer said. “I am proud to have recommended Mr. Ho, and to have championed his nomination.”