NYC NOW - January 2, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

The U.S Geological Survey confirms there was a 1.7 magnitude earthquake near Astoria, Queens this morning. Meanwhile, as lawmakers face pressure to strike a new housing deal in Albany, Manhattan Democrat Linda Rosenthal, chair of the Assembly's housing committee, says everything's on the table. Plus, as the federal probe into Mayor Eric Adams’ campaign continues, some legal experts say a case against the mayor or members of his circle could soon land on the desk of Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. WNYC’s Michael Hill sat with public safety reporter Samantha Max to learn more about Williams and his biggest cases.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. Happy New Year. It's Tuesday, January 2nd. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. If you thought you felt an earthquake this morning, you might be right after all. The U.S. Geological Survey now says there was a one-point set in magnitude earthquake near Astoria Queens. There are no reports of damage or injuries from it. A series of loud booms earlier this morning shook buildings on Roosevelt Island as well as Manhattan's Upper East Side. The Fire Department investigated a location on Roosevelt Island and later turned over that scene to Con Edison.

It's still not clear if those incidents are related, though the timing was very similar. We'll continue to bring you the latest information as it becomes available. Last year we're supposed to be the year New York Governor Kathy Hockel and state lawmakers tackled the housing crisis this year, they'll try again. Lawmakers will be back at the Capitol in Albany tomorrow to kick off the 2024 legislative session, and they'll face pressure to strike a deal on a plan to create more housing after last year talks failed. Manhattan Democrat Linda Rosenthal is chair of the Assembly's Housing Committee. She says everything's on the table. I'm not going to say no to anything right now because we need to have big ideas and ways to get housing built.

The 2024 session is scheduled run through the first week of June. Governor Hokel is scheduled to lay out her agenda in her state-to-the-state address next week. 38 and sunny now, sunny and 43 for a high today with a slight breeze just above freezing tonight in the city. Then tomorrow, mostly sunny, mid-forties, maybe some snow showers overnight. That is Wednesday into Thursday. Thursday, cloudy, than mostly sunny and 43 and Friday, a sunny high of just 38. Stay close. There's more after the break. As the federal probe into Mayor Eric Adams' campaign rolls on.

Some legal experts say a case against the mayor or members of his circle could soon land on the desk of Damien Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. We should note that Adams himself has not been charged with any crime. WN. WN.C. Samantha Max has been speaking with Williams' colleagues and review. some of the major cases that have shaped his career, which he says could tell us about how he might approach a potential case related to the campaign investigation. Sam joins us now. Sam, would you tell us a bit about who Damien Williams is? Yes, so he leads the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. That's the Federal Prosecutor's Office that oversees

Manhattan, the Bronx, also some suburban areas near the city. And it's known for taking on some of the country's most prominent cases, especially white-collar crime and public corruption. Williams is 43, and he has quite a resume. He's a graduate of Harvard, Cambridge, and the Yale Law School. He clerked for Merrick Garland, who's now the Attorney General. But he spent most of his career here in New York City at the Southern District of New York, largely focusing on fraud and corruption cases, and he's brought all kinds of cases in his career. Sam, on high-profile case, Williams prosecutor was against former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. What could that case tell us about any potential prosecution of the mayor or anyone involved

in the mayor's campaign inner circle? I think that this case really kind of highlights his ability to kind of maneuver through these really complex public corruption laws, which legal experts say have only become even more difficult to enforce over the years because of decisions that have been coming from the court that have kind of raised the threshold for what's considered illegal behavior. So in this case, former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver had been convicted in 2015 on federal bribery charges, but that conviction was later overturned following one of these Supreme Court decisions that kind of narrowed the scope of what's considered public corruption. Then the U.S. Attorney's Office tried the case a second time with Williams

represented the government in that second trial. Yes. And in 2018, prosecutor secured a conviction against Silver, who was sentenced to seven years in prison and actually died in 2022 while serving his sentence. I talked to the prosecutor who tried the case the first time, Carrie Cohen. She told me that she couldn't have thought of a better person than Williams to pick up where she left off. She said that he was just extremely thorough and fair as an attorney, but also the type of attorney who is going to try to search for as much information as possible, even if it makes a case kind of more complicated and more difficult to argue. I also talk to Silver's attorney, Michael Feldberg, who called Williams just a formidable adversary at trial.

The Silver case was a win for Williams, but another recent case highlights some of the challenges he could face as his office decides whether to bring charges against Adams or members of Adams' campaign. Tell us about that. Yeah, so I think a case that's worth keeping in mind is the 2022 indictment of then-Lutinent Governor Brian Benjamin. That case likely taught Williams' office some pretty valuable lessons that I think will continue to shape their public corruption cases in the future. So that case really just, again, highlights the strict criteria that prosecutors will, need to meet to successfully bring corruption charges against Adams, and also what could make a case fall apart. Benjamin was accused of promising a state grant to a real estate investor in exchange

for campaign donations. Here's Williams announcing the charges at a press conference in 2022. Taxpayer money for campaign contributions, quick pro quo, this for that. That's bribery, late and simple. So at that press conference, he's saying this is very simple and clear, this is bribery. But last December, a federal judge tossed the bribery charges and said that prosecutors needed to show evidence of what he called a explicit promise to use their power in exchange for some sort of bribe or favor like a campaign contribution. Brian Blaze, another former federal prosecutor and colleague of Williams, told me that he expects the office. Appeals Unit would actually review any indictment against the mayor if one were brought, just to anticipate if any issues might come up.

I think they'll be particularly careful in bringing public corruption cases in light of what happened in Benjamin. So the Benjamin case is currently on appeal, and his attorney did not respond to several requests for comment. More recently, Williams' office was behind the indictment of New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez. Any parallels between that case and what we know, far about the probe into Adams' campaign? Well, the Menendez case, it was just brought a few months ago, so it's still in the early stages and hard to say much about how prosecutors will bring the case and what the outcome will be.

But it really does show how Williams' public corruption unit has been able to piece together alleged ties between a politician, businesses, and foreign government officials. And based on the little that we know about the probe into the Adams campaign, Prosecutors could be looking again into connections between a politician, the mayor, in that case, businesses and a foreign government. And former federal prosecutors told me that when there are foreign ties in an investigation, it just makes it really difficult to prosecute because it's tricky to track down witnesses or records when the action is happening outside of the U.S. But a workaround that sometimes used is finding a U.S.-based company that has ties to that foreign government so that it's a little bit easier to track down information. And they told me that that might be the strategy that prosecutors are using in this case as well. That's our Samantha Max covering a lot of ground this morning. Thank you, Sam.

Thanks, Michael. Samantha Max covers public safety and the courts for WNMC. You can read more about Damian Williams and all of Sam's reporting at our news website, Guthams. Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back this evening.