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Subpoena of Asylum Seeker Office Head Points to Widening Federal Probe of Adams Confidants
Molly Schaeffer, who heads the city’s Asylum Seeker Operations office, was in regular contact with mayoral advisor Timothy Pearson, whose phone was seized by federal investigators earlier this month.
By Gwynne Hogan
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New York City’s Office of Asylum Seeker Operations Director Molly Schaeffer was hit with a request for information from federal investigators, an Adams administration source confirmed Friday.
The subpoena, which was first reported by the Associated Press, points to widening federal inquiry that’s entangled a stunning number of top officials in Mayor Eric Adams inner circle, from the former Police Commissioner Edward Caban to his longtime advisor and confidant Tim Pearson.
A former NYPD inspector who leads the Mayor’s Office of Municipal Services Assessment, Pearson reportedly had his electronic devices seized earlier this month by federal investigators. He worked closely with Schaeffer in his role at the MSA, a newly-created unit under Adams tasked with identifying savings across agencies.
Pearson was heavily involved in the asylum-seeker contracting process and regularly met with Schaffer to discuss the city’s management of the arrival of migrants, according to his schedule, which THE CITY obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request.
He reportedly held up the contracting process at times, like when trying to secure a security contract for one of the mayor’s friends, former NYPD detective Bo Dietl, Politico reported in February. And, according to allegations laid out in four lawsuits against Pearson filed in recent months, he regularly boasted about seeking kickbacks from city contracts which he referred to as, “crumbs.”
“Do you know how these contracts work? People are doing very well on these contracts. I have to get mine. Where are my crumbs?” Pearson allegedly said, in one of the suits reported on by The Daily News and filed by an NYPD officer and former subordinate in the MSA.
Reached by phone Friday, Schaeffer declined to comment on the subpoena, deferring to Deputy Mayor for Communications Fabien Levy.
Levy declined to comment on the ongoing investigation but said, “we expect all team members to fully comply with any ongoing inquiry.”
He added: “Molly Schaeffer is an integral part of our team and works hard every day to deliver for New Yorkers.”
At his weekly press briefing Tuesday, Adams doubled down on his support of embattled aid Pearson, who has repeatedly seized headlines over his two-year tenure in the mayor’s office for continuing to collect a salary from Resorts World Casino and for an incident first reported by THE CITY in which he was accused of assaulting a shelter guard who asked for his identification.
“Tim brought something to the dynamic that I knew we had to think outside the box to resolve the issues,” Adams said. “We saved hundreds of millions of dollars because of his analysis and partnership with the other people that it involved.”
The city’s former chief counsel Lisa Zornberg resigned abruptly last week after she urged the mayor to fire Pearson and was ignored, according to reports in the NYTimes and Politico.
While the exact scope of the federal investigations into Adams and top administration officials is not yet clear, several probes appear to be looking at the city contracting process, Adams’ mayoral campaign and connections to foreign nationals, and a scheme linked to Caban and his twin brother selling consulting services to clubs.
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