New York City Mayor Eric Adams said on Monday that he has accepted the resignation of Philip Banks, the deputy mayor for public safety.
Banks is the latest New York City public official to resign amid a federal probe into Adams’s alleged illegal campaign activity.
Banks was appointed in 2022 and had previously served as the New York Police Department’s (NYPD’s) highest-ranking officer.
In 2014, he resigned from the NYPD after a scandal in which two businessmen were convicted of bribing police officers and officials.
The investigation involved wiretapping Banks’s phone to see how $300,000 appeared in his bank account. Banks was named as an unindicted co-conspirator but was not charged.
He later acknowledged accepting gifts from the businessmen, including overseas travel, meals, and cigars, which he said were mistakenly omitted from disclosure forms.
Banks is the fifth top administrator to step down since Adams was indicted in September on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, bribery, and receiving campaign contributions from foreign nationals.
According to the indictment, Adams “not only accepted, but sought illegal campaign contributions to his 2021 mayoral campaign, as well as other things of value, from foreign nationals.”
As his influence grew after becoming mayor, foreign nationals exploited their relationship with him, which Adams allowed by “providing favorable treatment in exchange for the illicit benefits he received,” the indictment alleges.
Adams has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Last month, federal agents seized devices from Banks and other city officials, including Banks’s brother, David Banks, chancellor of New York City schools, who also announced his resignation. On Thursday, Adams said David Banks would cease running the school systems after Oct. 16.
David Banks had initially planned on staying until the end of the year, but he said the mayor decided to “accelerate that timeline.”
NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban and Adams’s closest aide, Timothy Pearson, both stepped down after their phones were seized last month.
Adams has rejected calls for his resignation, stating, “I am confident when the true story gets out, not a one-sided version, New York is going to see that we can stay focused and get the job done as we’re doing today and as we will continue to do so.”
Adams said of his relationship with the Banks brothers in a press conference last month that he has known the family “for years.”
“And my knowing someone, I hold them to the same standard that I hold myself to,” he said.
The mayor’s office didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment by publication time.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times