By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2024-11-08 18:28:29 | Updated at 2024-11-08 20:40:09
2 hours ago
An ex-City Hall official accused of namedropping Eric Adams while encouraging a campaign donor to lie to the FBI is mulling a potential plea deal — raising the specter that he could end up cooperating in the federal corruption case against the mayor.
Court papers filed this week state that attorneys for Mohamed Bahi, 40, and prosecutors are “engaged in, and are continuing, discussions concerning a possible disposition of this case.”
Terms of a potential deal were not revealed in the documents filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, nor whether he would agree to testify against Adams.
But the talks’ existence prompted Judge Jennifer Willis to grant a request by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York to freeze the trial clock for Bahi, giving them 30 days to hash out potential terms with his defense attorneys.
A source close to Adams’ legal team claimed that possibly getting Bahi to flip against the mayor shortly after Tuesday’s election of Donald Trump appeared desperate — with some in Hizzoner’s camp viewing his presidency as a likely boon for the mayor’s legal chances.
“It would be incredibly bad optics for SDNY at the very last minute to submit new witness testimony as part of their prosecution of the mayor based on a plea deal they made after Trump was re-elected,” the source said.
Trump, who has repeatedly expressed his view that Adams has been wrongly persecuted by the feds, could either hamper the case against the mayor by appointing a new US attorney or even pardon him if he’s convicted, some in the mayor’s orbit believe.
The feds face a ticking clock in Adams’ corruption case to get all their evidence in ahead of the historic April trial of the sitting mayor. He has pleaded not guilty to five counts of corruption and bribery.
Bahi’s arrest last month made him the first Adams administration official to be publicly accused of crimes after the mayor’s own indictment in September.
He had served as the mayor’s liaison to the Muslim community until he was forced to resign one day before a bombshell witness tampering complaint was unveiled against him — and fleshed out prosecutors’ hints in Adams’ case that allies of the mayor allegedly tried to impede the FBI’s investigation.
Bahi dropped Adams’ name as he pushed a businessman – who appears to be Uzbek American contractor Tolib Mansurov – to lie to the feds about his illegal straw donations to Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign, the complaint alleges.
The mayor, identified as “Official-1″ in the complaint, “believed that the Businessman would not cooperate with law enforcement,” Bahi told Mansurov, according to the court papers.
Bahi also encouraged four of Mansurov’s employees — who allegedly made donations to the mayor on the businessman’s behalf to skirt campaign finance laws — to lie, the papers charge.
He pleaded not guilty Oct. 8 and has been out on a $250,000 bond.
