Recent filings from Eric Adams’ 2025 campaign reveal that the incumbent mayor is still working with Brianna Suggs, his 2021 campaign fundraiser whose home was raided by the FBI. According to records turned over to the city’s Campaign Finance Board this week, her firm Suggs Solutions LLC was paid $110,000 throughout 2024 in $10,000 monthly payments, for the stated purposes of campaign consulting and professional services. The CFB’s records also show another $10,000 payment on January 3rd of this year.
Suggs’ home was the first among the mayor’s allies to be raided by the FBI on November 2nd 2023. At that time, Suggs Solutions LLC was already being contracted by Mayor Adams’ 2025 campaign, with payments beginning on March 31st 2022 for consulting and fundraising. Fees paid from the campaign to the LLC from that date up until the FBI raid topped $310,000. Suggs has not been charged with any wrongdoing since her home was searched.
Brianna Suggs’ appointment as fundraiser for Adams’ 2021 campaign raised eyebrows, as she was only 23 years old with no experience in the field. Speaking anonymously to POLITICO, one Adams donor said that Suggs was “like a kid,” and did not share Adams penchant for being “meticulous,” traits which the donor said could “take people around him down.” When Suggs’ home was raided, Adams defended her appointment as a way of rectifying racial and gender biases, telling PIX11 that “often young African American ladies don’t get the opportunity that others receive in the business of politics.”
The sources of funds raised by the 2021 Adams campaign lie at the heart of the corruption charges against the incumbent mayor. Federal prosecutors allege that the Adams campaign engaged in a straw donor scheme, masking the true source of campaign funds which exceeded legal limits and came from foreign (i.e. illegal) donors by funneling donations through a number of legal donors in smaller amounts, who were then reimbursed. Adams is alleged to have pushed for policies favorable to these interests, including the Turkish government, for whom Adams is accused of having pressured DOB and FDNY officials to approve the opening of a consular building that was not up to code.
Brianna Suggs first began working for Adams as an intern in 2017 when he was Brooklyn Borough President, and according to public records, became a “community associate” making $20 an hour in 2018. She reportedly worked under Ingrid Lewis-Martin over the four years that she was in the Borough President’s office. Adams has called Lewis-Martin his “sister” on numerous occasions, while she in turn has stated that Suggs is her “goddaughter,” according to the New York Times. Lewis-Martin surrendered to authorities last month on corruption charges. Brianna Suggs has also worked with Striving for Better New York, a political fundraising vehicle meant to support allies of Mayor Adams which was found to have steered most of the $1.3 million it raised to its founder, Brooklyn pastor and convicted felon Rev. Alfred Cockfield Jr., instead of political candidates.
