NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: A Breakdown of the Adams Case and Its Dismissal, Buy Nothing Groups in NYC and Singer Johnny Mathis Retires After NJ Show

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

New York City Mayor Eric Adams' criminal case is officially over. Plus, “buy nothing” groups are booming in the city as people navigate rising rents and high living costs. And finally, 89-year-old Johnny Mathis announces his retirement. He’ll play his last and final show on May 18 at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, New Jersey.

A breakdown of the Adams case and its dismissal. Buy nothing groups in New York City. And singer Johnny Mathis announces he's retiring after his show in New Jersey next month. From WMYC, this is NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre. I'm now happy that our city can finally close the book on this and focus solely on the future of our great city. A federal judge has dismissed the corruption case brought against New York. York City Mayor Eric Adams. The order from Judge Dale Ho was made with prejudice, meaning the

charges cannot be revisited in the future. WMYC's Maya Hibbitt is editor of the People in Power Desk. Maya, remind us about this case. What charges was Adams facing? So Adams was facing of five-count federal indictment that was brought in September, and those charges included bribery, wire fraud, and solicitation of illegal campaign donations from foreign donors. So Adams has run for mayor and several other positions in New York City in past years. And you're not supposed to take money from people outside the United States for your campaign. And the accusation was that he had fraudulently gotten donations from foreign nationals that he then used for his campaign. and also that he did things like fast-track building permits for a Turkish consulate in exchange or presumably in exchange for favors, perks like flight upgrades and hotels.

So this case dismissal, this is what the DOJ requested a couple months ago, right? Not exactly. You might remember that back in February, the DOJ ordered the charges dropped without prejudice. That means that they could have been brought back. And actually in the DOJ's order at the time, they said they should be looked at again in November. So that's after the mayoral election. They mentioned in that order that the Adams administration needed to be freed up to help the Trump administration with immigration enforcement. And a lot of critics saw this and said, this kind of seems like a weird quid pro quo, like the Trump administration is going to be able to hold this over Adams's head. And so Judge Ho actually clocked that and he objected to the dismissal without prejudice on exactly those grounds.

He said in his decision he wrote, quote, everything here smacks of a bargain, dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions. So what Ho did was instead he decided to drop the charges with prejudice. That means they can't come back and the Trump administration can't hold them over Eric Adams' head anymore. So, Maya, what's been the mayor's reaction? He was kind of religious sounding. He did this presser at Gracie Mansion. He didn't take questions, but he spoke to the public. And he talked about how it was clear that Jesus had intervened.

But he also kind of gave a nod to what some people have described as his shifting allegiances. He held up this book. He didn't say the name of it, but he said, you should all read this book. It's a great book. And the book in his hand was called Government. gangsters, the deep state, the truth, and the battle for our democracy. It's by Cash Patel. Do you know that as, Jenei? Yeah, the FBI director, right? Yeah, and he's a really longtime Trump loyalist. He's a major conservative media figure and activist. He actually was a federal prosecutor himself

back in the day, but he became really prominent because he's been this very vocal Trump booster. So he's sued major media outlets like the New York Times over the coverage of Trump. He's a big advocate, and it's been said he's a financial backer of the group of people who stormed the Capitol on January 6th. And he's had conservative media shows on outlets like the Epoch Times and was for a while a co-host of Steve Bannon's War Room podcast. Wow. So just a few days ago, the mayor's lawyer, Alex Spiro, he sent a letter to the judge urging him to make a decision in this case sooner rather than later. And, you know, here we are. So, Maya, my last question for you, where does Adams go from here?

We'll have to see the petitions to compete in the June 24th primary and in the Democratic primary are due on Thursday at midnight, so like Thursday night going into Friday. And so far, Adams hasn't said if he intends to file to run in the Democratic primary. But he keeps insisting that he is actually running. And even though he's way down in the polls, he did not do very well in fundraising in the last set of disclosure. that we got. And he has this very prominent rival, Andrew Cuomo, the former governor, who's just really running away with the race. And of course, all of these progressives and people on the left who are attacking Adams. So he has a really steep path to re-election. But he currently says he's going for it. That's WMYSC's Maya Hibbid. Be sure to check out our Saturday series

looking into the chaos that has consumed the Adams administration. This week, we're headed out to South East Queens for a check-in with the mayor's key base of supporters. And if you've missed the last two episodes in our series, scroll through our feet and take a listen. They dropped on the past two Saturdays. Let's step away from politics for a moment. Buy nothing groups, you know, those people giving away stuff for free, they're spreading across New York City. We'll have more on that after the break. Every year, thousands of New Yorkers give away their stuff for free.

and thousands of others eagerly snatch it up. Buy nothing groups, as they're called on Facebook, have been around for years. They're booming in the city as people navigate rising rents and high living costs. Fans of these groups, like me, say they get great stuff and sometimes more than they bargained for. Reporter Vito Emmanuel has more. When Tess Griffin showed up to a stranger's doorstep in Forest Hills, she thought she had a pretty good idea of what she was picking up. The picture was a little bit deceiving. I thought it would be more of a bigger table.

Right. This is a one foot by one foot table it looks like. How big did you think it was when you saw the post? I thought it would be like maybe three feet high and like three feet long. And so I already got there and I was like, oh, it's much smaller than I thought. But beggars can't be choosers, so she took it anyway. Griffin is one of many New Yorkers who have recently joined a buy nothing Facebook group in search of all kinds of free stuff. A bed, a bed frame. Frozen turkey, holiday tree, DVD player, a dining room table, and two office chairs. The shoes I'm wearing right now. The surge in popularity is keeping people like Sunny Cervantes busy. She's an admin of the East Village Group.

She says she can hardly keep up with the number of people requesting to join. It's just piling up. It gets to a point where in one day I have to review 20 requests, and it's just impossible. So what's behind the surge? Gustav Peoples is an anthropologist at Stockholm University in Sweden. He says what he calls parallel systems of exchange, like buy nothing groups, tend to crop up when money's tight. There's always a bubbling critique of the money economy, and it bubbles up more during moments of crisis. This could be one of those moments. Rents are ballooning across the city, and thanks to inflation, so is the cost of furnishing an apartment.

Buy nothing groups are also infamous for serving up more. than free stuff. Just ask Tess Griffin, the one with the tiny table. There's a lot of, like, low-stakes drama on the Facebook group sometimes. Drama like... Oh, someone is posting something, but they're not in this neighborhood. And so people are like, why are you posting here? That is not... You're not following the rules. That's another thing about buy nothing groups. There are a lot of rules.

Some are common sense, like actually show up when you say you will. Don't give something away when you promised it to someone else. But others are more obscure, like a rule against using acronyms. It was intended to keep language as accessible as possible. That is, until it was struck down in 2023. Break the rules and incur the wrath of the by-nothing commenters. And so what usually happens is that a lot of the older people on the Facebook group will post in the group and complain publicly.

Like, why are people giving away things that they already promised me? Or, like, why aren't people showing up? It's really a drag. But sometimes these disputes escape the comment section. Carissa Matta got kicked out of her group in the East Village for taking too long to confirm that she still lived in the area, a bedrock and contentious rule on Buy Nothing. She says it can be a balancing act to follow all the rules. The rules that end up making people not like the platform are ones that just make it clunkier for people who don't have that kind of time or that kind of like dedication. people don't want to follow all of those rules to get rid of a yoga mat that's chewed up by their dog, right?

And for a group built on equal access, Mata says strict rules might strike the wrong chord. Shouldn't it remain that we try to make things easy on people and try to help people versus like creating all these boundaries that just make it harder for everyone? So much like New York City, it's a messy and unpredictable beast. But sometimes unexpectedly good things happen too, like what happened to Lorraine Pessione and Bush. Someone had posted a bunch of crochet materials, and so I picked it up, and someone else from the Buy Nothing group reached out to me and said, hey, I know how to crochet. I can teach you. Let's meet up at a cafe. And so we did, and we're still friends four years later. Proving once again that it isn't enough to know what you're picking up to know what you'll walk away with. That's reporter Vito

Emmanuel. Before we go, some news for fans of Johnny Mathis. The singer is retiring and his final concert will be in New Jersey next month. The 89-year-old singer will have four more shows before that. Any concerts planned in June or beyond will be refunded. He says he's retiring because of age and memory issues. Mathis is famous for his hit ballets, including Chances Are, and it's not for me to say.

He won the Grammy's Lifetime Achievement Award back in 2003. Your last opportunity to catch him on stage will be May 18th at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. I'm Jene Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.