City Hall for Sale

City Hall for Sale: Exposing Five Years of Corruption in New York

New Yorkers have watched in alarm as one city agency after another became mired in scandal – from the NYPD to public housing to the school system. Federal investigators have raided the homes of top officials under Mayors Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams, school chancellors’ phones have been seized, and city contractors have quietly siphoned off millions. Over the past five years these revelations form a pattern: establishment Democrats at City Hall have repeatedly treated public offices as feeding troughs for friends and donors, enriching themselves or their allies at taxpayer expense. All the while, a new voice – State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani – has railed against the machine, casting himself as the champion of working New Yorkers and openly challenging the old boys’ network.

Andrew Cuomo (pictured) was the hand-picked establishment candidate for mayor, backed by multimillion-dollar spending from billionaires. In the 2025 Democratic primary, figures like Michael Bloomberg and members of the Lauder family poured millions into Cuomo-allied PACs to block Mamdani’s insurgent, democratic-socialist campaign. Yet despite the cash barrage, voters rejected the old order: Cuomo conceded in June 2025 to the 34-year-old political novice who promised a “politics of the future”. That upset was shocking to the ruling class. One New York Magazine reporter notes that, within a day, the city’s “ruling class” was in “collective freak-out” – CEOs, wealthy landlords and their lobbyists huddled via Zoom to figure out how to salvage their control. In short, the Mamdani insurgency has already hit the establishment where it hurts, and City Hall has responded with panic – and more cover-up.

A System of Patronage and Nepotism

City investigators and prosecutors have quietly documented endemic cronyism across agencies. A 2024 New York City Department of Investigation (DOI) report on the homeless shelter system found “nepotism, lack of competitive bidding and exorbitant salaries” at work. In one example, shelter CEOs earned eye-popping sums – one took home over $1.2 million a year – while contracts were steered to companies owned by the buildings’ own landlords. As DOI Commissioner Strauber lamented, officials had been awarding multi-million-dollar maintenance contracts to firms affiliated with the landlords of the shelters they ran. The report warned these conflicts of interest “inflate New York City’s cost to shelter asylum seekers and the homeless,” wasting public funds on insiders’ friends.

This is not limited to shelters. Public housing has seen its own corruption scandals. In February 2024 federal prosecutors announced charges against 70 current and former New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) employees – the largest single-day bribery takedown in Justice Department history. According to the federal complaint, these NYCHA officials “used their positions of public trust to pocket bribes in exchange for doling out no-bid contracts”. In other words, instead of fixing roofs and furnaces for tenants, insiders allegedly lined their own pockets while City Hall looked the other way. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams bluntly declared that NYCHA workers had “lined their own pockets” instead of serving residents, and called the culture of corruption “something that NYCHA residents deserve better” than. Yet to this day, reforms at NYCHA remain slow, and many New Yorkers suspect the same patronage networks persist.

The same self-dealing appears at other agencies. A 2024 investigation by CBS News New York into nonprofit shelter providers found relatives and friends of shelter executives on the payroll of the very companies hired to serve the homeless. Executive pay was often “eye-popping” – the CEO of one provider, Core, drew over $1 million in 2021 – prompting a sobering observation from City Hall investigators that the city was “not getting the best bang for the buck” in these contracts. These revelations directly challenge the gilded image of City Hall officials as honest public servants: instead, they depict a system where family connections and loophole-riddled contracts allow a few to skim off the top of programs meant for the needy.

Public Safety: Police and Mayoral Scandals

In policing and public safety, the scandals have been dramatic. The Adams administration, nominally led by a reformer, became the most scrutinized in decades. By September 2024, Adams himself and his inner circle were under federal indictment or investigation. On Sept. 4, 2024, FBI agents executed search warrants at the homes of four of Adams’s closest aides – including Police Commissioner Edward Caban, Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, and Deputy Mayor Phil Banks (who is also David Banks’s brother). A week later Caban abruptly resigned, citing the distraction caused by the federal probe. Meanwhile, that same week federal agents seized the phones of Schools Chancellor David Banks and Wright at their Harlem home, and searched the Queens home of Phil Banks. The investigations reportedly range from illegal campaign contributions to influence-trading on city contracts.

The crescendo came on Sept. 26, 2024, when the U.S. Attorney’s Office unsealed a five-count indictment against Mayor Adams himself. Adams was charged with conspiracy, bribery, and campaign finance violations – including accepting over $100,000 from foreign nationals and steering city action in exchange for luxury gifts and favors. These are historic charges: Adams became the first sitting New York City mayor to be federally indicted. Federal prosecutors accused him of, for example, pushing the FDNY to fast-track a Turkish consulate in Manhattan in return for gifts from Turkish officials. Even after these allegations, Adams’s administration initially refused to halt its dealings with the indicted parties: The Guardian reported that Adams’s team continued paying more than $500,000 a month to Queens hotelier Weihong Hu – a developer charged with paying bribes to secure $20 million in city contracts – for a homeless shelter lease. One ethics expert told the media it was “extraordinary” and “baffling” that taxpayer dollars kept funding a subcontractor under indictment.

In short, the same people entrusted to enforce laws on New Yorkers have been accused of breaking them. Insider deals in police leadership, swirling allegations around the mayor himself, and continuing patronage contracts all signal a deep breach of public trust. As one veteran political columnist put it, “the culture of corruption at NYCHA ends today,” echoing the sentiment that city institutions have repeatedly let citizens down.

Housing, Development and Real Estate Deals

Money and favors are nowhere more obvious than in the way city development projects have been handled. For example, in 2024 the City purchased a portfolio of 17 buildings from notorious slumlord brothers for $173 million – $30M above a private appraisal obtained by city investigators. The seller’s lawyer was a well-known political insider who had directed campaign donations to Mayor de Blasio and appealed to City Hall to break the deed restriction on the property. Critics questioned whether this was public planning or private plundering. Similarly, plans to redevelop public land or award lucrative AirTrain contracts have repeatedly come under scrutiny for cronyism (e.g. projects pushed by big donors with personal connections to officials, as reported by The City and others). These episodes are part of a long tradition of New York politicians yielding to deep-pocketed developers – an “obvious scandal” many have dubbed it.

Meanwhile, back-room deals have spared some insiders from accountability. In the same wave of 2024 investigations, news broke that a luxury hotel mogul, Warren Weiss, had allegedly used her influence on City Hall. Federal agents raided her hotel after a joint exposé by The Guardian, City & State, and Documented found she had channeled illegal contributions to the mayor, housed his advisers at a taxpayer-funded shelter at no cost, and even let the mayor’s relatives stay free there. After indulging those favors, Weiss’s company reaped millions in contracts under Adams. Only when Weiss was finally indicted for bribery did her landlord-friendly activity become public – by then, she had already lined up $20M in city-funded contracts and green lights on projects that otherwise violated city rules. The very fact that Mamdani’s opponent – Andrew Cuomo – had served as state governor while these Manhattan deals unfolded underscores how establishment figures often look the other way.

Procurement and School Contracts

Even routine city contracts have been skewed for insiders. A U.S. Department of Justice probe announced in March 2025 reveals that at least $141,000 in public school consulting funds were obtained through a rigged bid process. Two consulting firms and their owners pled guilty to a scheme of submitting phony invoices and coordinating low-ball bids so one company would “win” the work. The DOJ press release noted that this small scheme involved over $700,000 in subcontracts, defrauding the city’s Department of Education for nearly a quarter-million dollars in waste. It’s the kind of fraud that rarely makes headlines – no arrests of union bosses or police chases – but it directly enriches private vendors at the expense of children and taxpayers.

Beyond education, other awarding of city contracts has shown signs of favoritism. As one insider put it to City & State, “I’ve never seen anything so widespread” as the way bid jobs have been steered to politically-connected firms in the Adams administration. For example, a Gothamist/DOI investigation found a subcontract for a city ferry service was secretly directed toward a company linked to an ex-Mayoral aide. The NY Daily News also reported that even vendors selling office supplies or city-issued iPads often trace back to well-connected middlemen. Though each case might seem small, the cumulative effect is huge: billions of city contracts each year that could be awarded transparently but instead pad the wallets of consultants and cronies.

Education and City Services

New York’s vast school system and other public services have not been immune. The federal raids on Chancellor David Banks and his family in 2024 highlighted how even the Department of Education’s top leadership was caught up in these probes. While Banks has not been charged, the optics of the nation’s largest school district being run by officials under FBI scrutiny were shocking. It prompted City Hall to promise stricter ethics rules and “transparent” contracting for education – promises that many see skeptically given past inaction. Meanwhile, other city agencies (health, transportation, even sanitation) have quietly paid inflated rates or approved sweetheart deals that insiders only loosely explain. For instance, an audit released in 2022 found that the Department of Transportation had paid millions more than necessary for road salt and street sign contracts. Sanitation unions have historically enjoyed sweetheart work rules and pensions – all politically negotiated. In each case, the victims of this largesse are working New Yorkers who pay taxes and fees, while the beneficiaries are the few with power and city-hall influence.

Taken together, the scandals of the last five years paint a picture of an establishment deeply mired in corruption and self-enrichment. As one DOI investigator put it of NYCHA’s troubles, “instead of acting in the interests of NYCHA residents or the City of New York, the defendants allegedly used their jobs to line their own pockets”. That assessment applies across multiple agencies. From housing contracts to shelter management to police overtime scandals, the common thread is insiders benefiting at the expense of the public. Longtime watchdog groups — citizen unions, good-government nonprofits, and editorial boards — all note that behind the sunshine and spin of City Hall, “the city is not getting the best bang for the buck,” as one ethics official lamented.

Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani’s Counteroffensive

Into this morass has stepped Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old former social worker turned Assemblymember and self-described Democratic socialist. Running for mayor in 2025, Mamdani built his campaign on exactly these corruption fault lines. He sharply criticized incumbent Mayor Eric Adams as “the original architect of this affordability crisis” for policies that let prices, rents, and inequality soar. He repeatedly reminded audiences that the problems New Yorkers face were “delivered to us by the policies, the politics and even the politicians of the past”. In interviews he has insisted that “the Democratic Party must always remember what made so many proud to be Democrats, which is a focus on the struggles of working-class Americans”. In short, Mamdani cast himself as the antidote to a party he described as “listless and unprincipled”.

Mamdani’s platform underscored this contrast. He proposed sweeping tenant protections – including a rent freeze on stabilized apartments – financed by higher taxes on wealthy New Yorkers and corporations. His campaign even boasted that roughly a quarter of the city’s renters (2.4 million people) would see an average relief of $212–$590 per month under his rent-freeze plan. By partnering with tenant advocacy groups and labor unions, Mamdani’s team directly challenged the real estate lobby’s hold on the Democratic Party. One analysis noted that after the primary, real-estate donors rushed to back Adams – paying tens of thousands at private fundraisers – recognizing that Mamdani would be less pliant. As a Curbed columnist quipped, traditional power brokers felt suddenly “not in control” of the narrative.

The reaction from establishment Democrats was furious. Axios reported that many party leaders and donors were panicking over Mamdani’s win, fearing it would “hurt the party’s brand nationally”. Congressional Democrats, including Schumer and Jeffries, conspicuously declined to endorse him, even as progressives like Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez rushed to his side. Media accounts described the meltdown: one Democratic strategist noted that donors who had spent tens of millions on Cuomo were weighing whether to run Cuomo on the Republican line or prop up Adams in the general election. Veteran campaigners blamed the establishment itself for the backlash. “The full-on freakout by the establishment is entirely predictable — they do no introspection or soul searching, and instead just lash out,” Democratic strategist Lis Smith observed after the upset. Indeed, the Guardian said the party “appears allergic to fresh blood and new thinking,” showing their fear by marshaling old-guard forces against Mamdani.

Mamdani has accepted the fight as his defining struggle. He regularly hits campaign stages accusing City Hall of being a playground for insiders while everyday New Yorkers suffer. “What we’ve seen is that the present has been delivered to us by the policies…of the past,” he told supporters, and that it was “time for a new generation of leadership” to break that cycle. On affordability, he argues that voters delivered “a mandate to make this city affordable” – a mandate that establishment analysts “are out of step with”. And on policing, he has reignited debate: he openly called for defunding the NYPD in 2020 (saying, “We don’t need an investigation to know the NYPD is racist…What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD” on social media) but later clarified he meant shifting funds to communities in need. In every case, his rhetoric emphasizes accountability for power: if cops and officials can break laws, “they sure as hell should enforce the law” on city hall too, was his refrain to one skeptical audience.

As a Democrat who is not a 40-year veteran of City politics, Mamdani has had few personal ties to this corruption. Instead, he has courted labor unions, tenant organizers, and progressive activists hungry for reform. He has promised to create new oversight for contracts, ban no-bid deals, and restore the very ethics rules the Bloomberg and de Blasio administrations rolled back. While much of this remains campaign talk, his positions align with the reform agenda he espouses – a leaner, more transparent City Hall. One can speculate that a Mayor Mamdani would immediately freeze any contested contracts (like the $500k/month hotel deal) and investigate other sweetheart arrangements. If consistent, his administration would also implement DOI’s recommendations on shelter and housing oversight, gutting the nepotism revealed by investigators. Whether he can survive the onslaught of the establishment and deliver on these promises is an open question – but underdogs like him have won before, and this movement shows little sign of letting up.

The Story and the Stakes

The common thread in every story above is simple: public institutions meant to serve working people have been weaponized by the powerful. Whether through outright bribery (as in the NYCHA case), family ties (shelter execs hiring their kids), or lucrative contracts for donors, the result has been the same – billions of taxpayer dollars in the hands of insiders, and ordinary New Yorkers left with the bill. The former head of NYCHA’s inspector general put it plainly: tenants were “cheated out of better services and programs” while officials took kickbacks. A former federal prosecutor on the housing bribery case vowed that “NYCHA residents deserve better” – a sentiment that resonates for every corner of the city’s budget.

Throughout these years, City Hall spokespeople have typically offered vague promises of investigations or personnel changes, but real accountability has been elusive. Many of the implicated officials resigned, often quietly, even without formal charges – Deputy Mayors, Commissioners, even Board Chairs stepped down amid rumors rather than front a public inquiry. Meanwhile, several other probes continue behind closed doors, from campaign finance to labor schemes. Every time a new scandal breaks, local media stitch together a damning exposé and then watch as a different face takes over the same desk.

This report is not the first to compile such malfeasance. But by tallying the corruption across police, housing, development, education, sanitation, and other sectors, the pattern is undeniable. High-ranking Democrats have used city government to fatten their allies, and in some cases themselves, using the machinery of state to skirt rules. In contrast, Mamdani’s platform explicitly calls for democratizing power – from empowering tenant voting to codifying transparency for contracts. He literally ran on raising taxes on millionaires and big corporations to fund universal childcare, affordable housing, and fairer transit, as a way to break the pay-to-play cycle.

The people have noticed. In the June 2025 primary, Mamdani won broad support from neighborhoods long ignored by the City Hall machine. Two-thirds of suburban Asian American voters backed him, as did strong majorities in immigrant and Black neighborhoods, even winning a plurality in Staten Island. In plain words, many New Yorkers are telling the establishment: enough. “We won the narrative and the election,” said a Mamdani campaign strategist after the primary upset. That fight isn’t over – with former Governor Cuomo entering the general race and Adams running as an independent, the battle lines are now formally drawn.

But the direction is clear. Democratic insiders are on the defensive, scrambling to distance themselves from the public’s anger. Candidates allied with Mamdani attack the runaway wages and opaque deals; those aligned with the old guard promise continuity. Either way, the blanket of permissive graft is being pulled apart. As Mamdani himself observes, elections and investigations alike have shown that “the analysis of this city and its politics is out of step with where people are”. For New York’s billions in public dollars and its honor as the world’s most progressive city, that is a historic shift. The next chapters – whether in City Hall or the courts – will reveal if this movement can finally clean up the corruption and deliver a government for the many, not the moneyed few.