Former New York City government senior liaison Mohamed Bahi was arrested and charged on October 8 for allegedly obstructing witnesses and tampering with evidence in the federal investigation of the Adams campaign fundraising case. He is the first former official to be indicted besides Adams.
The 40-year-old Bahi, originally from Staten Island, served as a senior liaison between the mayor and the Muslim community from 2022 until his resignation on October 7, 2024. In June of this year, as part of the federal investigation into Adams’ mayoral campaign fundraising activities, Bahi allegedly instructed multiple witnesses to lie to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Additionally, in July, when the FBI searched his residence and confiscated electronic devices, Bahi deleted the encrypted messaging application Signal that he used to communicate with Adams, leading to charges of obstructing witnesses and tampering with evidence. He was arrested on October 8 and appeared in Manhattan Federal Court on the same day.
According to the indictment, in December 2020, Bahi encouraged a construction company owner, in addition to himself, to utilize four employees as straw donors, each donating $2,000 to Adams’ mayoral campaign in order to allow the Adams camp to receive eight times the amount in public matching funds due to the small donations. In June of this year, the FBI raided the residence of this construction company owner investigating both the owner and the four employees, all of whom denied involvement in the straw donor scheme. Later that same day, Bahi met with the construction company owner and advised him to “continue lying to federal investigators, and everything would be fine.” He then met with the four straw donors and gave them the same advice. Bahi later told the construction company owner that the mayor hoped he would “not cooperate with law enforcement.”
On July 24, the FBI searched Bahi’s residence and confiscated his phone. Just before law enforcement arrived, Bahi hurriedly deleted the Signal application used to communicate with Adams. He claimed he was traveling to Egypt that night and usually deleted applications that could be considered suspicious by foreign authorities before traveling internationally. However, during his visit to Egypt and Yemen in February of this year, Bahi had indeed communicated with Adams through Signal.
Through cross-referencing New York City campaign finance records and the donation records reported by Adams’ campaign team on December 17, 2020, Gothamist confirmed that the construction company owner was Tolib Mansurov, a leader in the Uzbek community who owns the United Elite Group company. Gothamist previously reported that in February 2023, when Mansurov was constructing an apartment building in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, he texted Adams requesting help to revoke a stop-work order on the construction site. Shortly after, the Department of Buildings lifted the stop-work order, and Mansurov later texted Adams to express gratitude for the assistance.
During a routine press conference at City Hall on October 8, Adams was asked about the situation and praised Bahi for his outstanding contributions in connecting with the Muslim community. Adams stated that Bahi’s legal issues should be handled by a lawyer.
Adams also emphasized that he would never instruct Bahi or anyone else to engage in illegal or improper activities; his only directive to them is to “follow the law.” In responding to a wave of resignations among city officials, Adams noted that the city has 300,000 employees, and resignations are a normal occurrence. Many departures are due to personal career planning and not directly related to the federal investigation.