NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) –Two men were sentenced Tuesday for their involvement in conspiring to use a straw donor scheme to divert tens of thousands of dollars in public money to Adams' campaign months before his election in 2021.
Shahid Mushtaq and Yahya Mushtaq, owners of EcoSafety Consultants firm, a construction firm in Queens, paid $500 in fines and completed 35 hours of community service as part of their plea deal which was settled last year.
Both had pleaded guilty in October to a misdemeanor conspiracy charge for funneling contributions to the campaign through straw donors.
"The case has reached its conclusion, and my clients are happy to get this behind them and to move forward with their life and provide for their family and going back to what they need to do," Scott Grauman, an attorney for the Mushtaqs, told the Daily News.
The two were among the six people charged last year in an alleged scheme to divert tens of thousands of dollars in public money to Adams' campaign months before his election.
The indictment, announced by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, does not implicate Adams or other current city employees in the upended plot.
Rather, it described a straw donor conspiracy orchestrated by people with business before the city who hoped to maximize their donations in exchange for political favors.
"We allege a deliberate scheme to game the system in a blatant attempt to gain power," Bragg said in a statement last year. "The New York City Campaign Finance Board program is meant to support our democracy and amplify the voices of New York City voters. When the integrity of that program is corrupted, all New Yorkers suffer."
Prosecutors said the effort to illegally structure donations was led by Dwayne Montgomery, a former NYPD inspector currently listed as the director of integrity for the Teamsters Local 237, which represents municipal workers.
Montgomery is accused of recruiting friends and relatives to take advantage of the city's generous matching funds system, which provides an eight-to-one match for the first $250 donated by a city resident.
He allegedly orchestrated more than two dozens straw donations between 2020 and 2021, while also helping to organize fundraisers for Adams. It's not clear how much money was ultimately steered to the campaign.
Evan Thies, a spokesperson for the mayor's campaign, acknowledged last year that Adams knew Montgomery "socially," noting the two served in the NYPD together and later worked on criminal justice issues. However, he denied that the campaign had any knowledge of the scheme.
The indictment also names Shamsuddin Riza, Millicent Redick, and Ronald Peek as helping to organize the illegal donations.
Although New York's campaign finance rules bar those with business before the city from donating more than $400, prosecutors say the defendants devised a scheme to donate to the campaign under the names of EcoSafety's employees, without their knowledge.
"You could use a straw man," Riza allegedly told Yahya Mushtaq during a phone call. "Whoever's on the LLC or the incorporation, those are the people that do business with the city. Anybody else is an employee, the employees don't fall under that criteria."
Riza, who owns a construction company and was previously charged with falsifying business records, also allegedly indicated that he was hoping to secure work from the city.
"FYI ! This is the one I want , Safety , Drywall , and Security one project but we all can eat," Riza wrote in a July 2021 email to Montgomery in which he sent along the information for a construction project called Vital Brooklyn, prosecutors allege.
All of the defendants faced charges of conspiracy, attempted grand larceny, and making false statements.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
