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Last fall, a prominent Manhattan doctor who serves on the city’s health commission and runs a company that does business with the city donated $10,000 to Mayor Adams’ legal defense trust with his wife, the Daily News reported. I found out from the report.
The late November donation by Angelo Aquista and Svetlana Aquista will allow anyone to legally contribute money to a trust set up by Adams to cover legal fees from the FBI investigation into his 2021 campaign. This is in sharp contrast to the city’s restrictive regulations.
Under rules enforced by the Conflicts of Interest Commission, individuals involved in business with the city are prohibited from contributing money to the Adams Defense Trust. The rules also prohibit spouses of individuals who do business with a municipality from donating to the municipality.
Still, Adams’ trust accepted a $5,000 donation from Angelo Aquista on Nov. 28, the maximum allowed by law, and another $5,000 from Svetlana Aquista the next day. , according to the trust’s first public information release this month.
The Aquistas’ donations came despite the trust paying private detective firm Altus Group $18,664 to perform “vetting and investigation services” to ensure the legality of all donations. This was revealed in the disclosure.
Vito Pitta, an attorney for Adams’ defense fund, was asked about Aquista and said Monday that Angelo Aquista owns a company that does business with the city through a so-called beneficiary-managed trust, so the mayor’s team said they were confident their donations were legal. investment vehicle.
Still, Pitta returned Angelo Aquista’s donation on January 11, 44 days after it was made, “out of an abundance of caution,” the mayor’s team said, given Adams’ role, considering him a “subordinate.” He said he wasn’t sure if he was eligible. The mayor appointed him to the Board of Health in March 2023. Under city law, the mayor’s subordinates are also legally prohibited from donating to the defense trust.
However, the Adams trust did not return the donation from Svetlana Acquista.
Pitta doesn’t think the mayor’s team should apply business restrictions to Angelo Aquista because of his beneficiary-managed trust ownership structure, which he doesn’t think would prevent his wife from making donations. , said they had chosen not to return the donations.
Donors to Mr. Adams’ defense trust must sign a statement confirming that they are not subordinate to the mayor and are not engaged in business transactions for the city. Pitta would not say how the Aquistas filled out those forms.
Pulmonologist Angelo Aquista said, diet book author The former executive at Manhattan’s Lenox Hill Hospital did not respond to requests for comment through his lawyer since last week.
Carolyn Miller, executive director of the conflict of interest committee, declined to comment on specifics about Aquista’s donations, citing agency confidentiality protocols.
However, when asked if a beneficiary-managed trust owner of a company that does business with the city would be prohibited from donating to the defense fund, Miller said, “A statutory defense trust is not listed on the statutory defense fund. “We are prohibited from accepting donations from anyone who is.” “Do business databases” as well as spouses of such people “there are no restrictions as to why they are there.”
Miller would not say whether Acquista’s role as the mayor’s appointee to the Board of Health makes him a subordinate of Adams.
According to the Conflict of Interest Commission’s rules, the Mayor’s Legal Defense Trust must return any donations it is not legally allowed to accept, and “less than $5,000 for a first offense, and no more than $5,000 for a second offense.” “Subject to civil penalties of up to $15,000, and up to $30,000 for third and subsequent violations. ”
The revelation about Aquista’s donations comes after news outlet Hell Gate reported last week that the wives of Jack and Joseph Caia, executives at the Midtown Equities real estate company, reported that their husbands each paid 5,000 to the mayor’s defense trust in December. The announcement was made after it was reported that he had donated $1. Registered in the city’s business database. Mr Pitta told the program that the trust would return these donations “if we determine that they are in fact prohibited”.
In addition to his trust donation, Angelo Acquista donated $1,250 to Adams’ re-election campaign on June 13 of this year.
Another city law prohibits individuals who do business with the city from contributing more than $400 to a mayoral campaign. Pitta said he has not returned any of Aquista’s June donation because he believes the Adams campaign should not be affected by business restrictions.
A spokeswoman for the City Campaign Finance Commission, which enforces local campaign finance laws, declined to comment Monday, citing confidentiality rules.
The city’s business contribution limits are intended to prevent “pay-to-play” in city government, according to the Campaign Finance Commission.
The company owned by Angelo Aquista through a beneficiary-managed trust is called Luyster Creek, LLC.
According to the city’s business database, the company has been conducting real estate-related transactions with the city government since March 1, 2023. The database does not reveal exactly how the business was carried out.
But real estate records reviewed by the News show that the Luister Creek entity owns industrial land in Astoria, Queens, and that the city’s Department of Sanitation has leased the site for years. The agency also has plans to build a $283 million garage at the site, according to capital planning records.
Angelo Acquista identified himself as a “manager” of the Luister Creek entities in a 2017 signed document detailing a $20 million mortgage loan the company took out for the entities. He called himself.
Aquista’s donation was part of more than $666,000 the Mayor’s Defense Trust reported raising from its launch in mid-November through Dec. 31.
The mayor said FBI agents raided the home of Brianna Suggs, the mayor’s top political fundraiser, on Nov. 2 as part of an investigation into whether the Turkish government funneled illegal cash to his 2021 campaign coffers. The trust was established in response to the search. A few days after the attack on the Suggs, investigators stopped the mayor on the street and seized his electronic devices, including two cell phones.
Neither Mr. Adams nor anyone associated with his campaign has been formally accused of wrongdoing.
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