Frank Carone, the onetime chief of staff to former New York City Mayor Eric Adams, was arrested at his home Wednesday by FBI agents and indicted on bribery, conspiracy, and fraud charges, according to federal prosecutors and court filings. His brother, Anthony Carone, was also arrested.
The charges stem from an alleged scheme in 2022 and 2023 in which Carone accepted about $120,000 in bribes in exchange for steering a contract to Microtel, a 75-room hotel in Queens, to house migrants the city was legally required to shelter, prosecutors said. The indictment, filed in the Eastern District of New York, alleges that the defendants exploited the city’s migrant crisis for personal profit.
According to the indictment, after Microtel was initially rejected for a contract, Carone intervened, and the hotel was subsequently awarded $6,825,000 in shelter contracts. To conceal the payments, the hotel defendants directed funds to a law firm account controlled by Anthony Carone, who then paid Frank Carone’s credit card bills for groceries, clothing, fitness memberships, and dining, prosecutors said.
Arthur Aidala, an attorney representing Frank Carone, confirmed the indictment and criticized the government’s case. “It epitomizes the government first finding a target and then spending three years and enormous taxpayer resources to find a crime,” Aidala said in a statement. “After intense investigations over many years, all the government was able to come up with was this weak indictment based on purely circumstantial evidence that’s not worth the paper upon which it’s printed.”
Carone, 56, is a longtime mentor and confidant to Adams. He served as Adams’ chief of staff for one year before leaving to start a consulting firm, Oaktree Solutions. He has been a prominent figure in Brooklyn Democratic politics, serving as counsel to the local Democratic Party.
Former Mayor Adams released a statement Wednesday expressing support for Carone. “My prayers are with his family,” Adams said. “Frank Carone has dedicated decades of his life to public service, the legal profession, and helping countless individuals, businesses, and charitable organizations throughout New York.”
The arrest is the latest in a series of federal and state corruption probes that have targeted members of the Adams administration. Adams himself was indicted in 2024 on bribery and campaign-finance charges while running for re-election. The Justice Department under President Trump later moved to dismiss those charges, and Adams subsequently dropped his re-election bid. Before that case was dismissed, Carone attended a meeting at a Florida golf course with Adams and Trump, who had developed a rapport over phone calls.
Carone and his brother were expected to appear in federal court in Brooklyn later Wednesday. A lawyer for Anthony Carone could not be immediately reached for comment. The charges are being handled in the Eastern District of New York.