Federal authorities raided a hotel in Queens last week owned by an Eric Adams fundraiser. Last Thursday, a warrant was presented and executed at The Mayflower Howard Johnson hotel in Long Island City, which is being used as transitional housing for ex-inmates. The search is part of an investigation headed by the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
The hotel is operated by Housing Works, who clarified that the organization was not the target of the investigation, “nor were any of the clients Housing Works serves at this site, agency management, any subsidiaries, subcontractors, etc.” according to a spokesperson’s statement.
The hotel is owned by Weihong Hu, a developer and businesswoman who has extensive business ties with the city and the Adams administration in particular. Hu has other hotels in her portfolio, and has benefited from multimillion-dollar contracts with the city to house recently-released inmates and migrants in them. An investigation last year from the Guardian, Documented, and THE CITY revealed that a close ally of the mayor, Winnie Greco, had been staying in a taxpayer-funded suite at another Hu-owned hotel in Queens, the Wyndham Garden Fresh Meadows. Greco has been a fundraiser in Eric Adams’ orbit since his days as Brooklyn borough president, and was one of the driving forces behind the now-abandoned “Friendship Archway” project that was to be placed in Sunset Park by the Chinese government. Her homes were raided by the feds last spring, and she resigned from her position as Mayor Adams’ director of Asian Affairs in October. An ex-hotel worker also told reporters that Eric Adams’ son, Jordan Coleman, stayed at the same hotel for at least one night with an unidentified woman.
Aside from her connections to Winnie Greco, Hu also has more direct ties to the mayor. According to THE CITY, Hu engaged in a straw donor scheme on behalf of the mayor in this election cycle, reimbursing family members for their contributions to his campaign. With few exceptions, paying people back for donating to political campaigns is illegal, as it allows one to technically circumvent legal limits on campaign donations. Hu also hired one of the mayor’s oldest friends, former State Senator John Sampson, one month after he was released from prison for obstruction of justice charges stemming from the alleged theft of $400,000 from the sale of foreclosed homes.
It is not immediately clear what authorities were looking for in the raids, what was taken in the search, or if they are related to the mayor’s ongoing legal travails. Eric Adams was indicted last September on corruption charges and faces trial next April.
