NEW YORK — One of six people involved in a straw donor scheme related to the 2021 campaign of Mayor Eric Adams pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to make illegal campaign donations.
Under the terms of the agreement Shamsuddin Riza, who owns a construction company and runs in Harlem political circles, will be sentenced to three years probation, and agreed not to organize any political fundraising events for those three years.
While the ultimate aim of the scheme was unclear, Riza, a construction contractor, told another of the accused he wanted Adams to ensure work on a specific Brooklyn hospital project once the election was over.
"FYI ! This is the one I want , Safety , Drywall , and Security [sic],” Riza wrote in an email, according to the complaint. “One project but we all can eat ! Please show to him before Event it will start when he's in office."
Riza, along with two other defendants, has donated to several prominent political figures in the neighborhood over the years.
Thursday's deal was hashed out between Riza and the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought charges against six people over the summer alleging they steered tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to the mayor’s campaign in the form of public matching funds. One was a longtime acquaintance and former NYPD colleague of Adams.
The mayor said he and his campaign weren’t aware of any straw donor scheme during his 2021 bid for office. Neither Adams, nor anybody working for him, have been accused of wrongdoing in this case. A representative for his campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new guilty plea.
Riza’s plea marks the fourth person charged in the scheme to strike a deal with prosecutors.
And it comes as Adams and his close associates face a cascade of legal and ethical troubles. Just this week, one of his top advisers was accused of sexual harassment in a new lawsuit and federal prosecutors have raided the homes of three of his aides.
Riza and his company, United Construction Brothers Services, also pleaded guilty to falsifying business records by acting as a pass-through for a white-owned company to get work as a minority-owned business.
In the indictment unsealed by Bragg in July, Riza and the five others were accused of conspiring to reimburse contributors to the mayor’s 2021 campaign. Known in election parlance as “straw donors,” the scheme allegedly took advantage of the city’s public financing program, which multiplied a portion of each donation eight-fold.
Over a series of telephone conversations monitored by Manhattan prosecutors, Riza and the co-defendants allegedly demonstrated a detailed knowledge of campaign finance rules and how to evade limits on individual donations by routing additional money through other donors who would then be reimbursed.
He is also related through marriage to Dwayne Montgomery, a fellow co-defendant who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in February.
Montgomery is a former NYPD colleague of Adams. The mayor’s team has previously brushed off the relationship, explaining that Montgomery was just one of many former law-enforcement colleagues who wanted to help Adams become mayor. But public records show Montgomery met with Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks in February 2022.
Two more defendants in the case, Ronald Peek and Millicent Redick, have pleaded guilty, and are separately due back in court later this month.
In a separate case, Chinese billionaire Hui Qin pleaded guilty to federal charges in March to making straw donations to Adams’ campaign. The mayor has also denied any wrongdoing in that case, and hasn’t been charged.
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