Top Adams Aides Get Married as Investigation Swirls Around Them – DNyuz

At a wedding in Martha’s Vineyard, key players in City Hall sought refuge this weekend from the several federal investigations plaguing Mayor Eric Adams’s administration.

A day after Mr. Adams pleaded not guilty to criminal charges including bribery and fraud, Sheena Wright, Mr. Adams’s first deputy mayor, and David C. Banks, the schools chancellor, married on the island in Massachusetts, according to three people familiar with their plans.

Their marriage was said to have been planned for some time, and it followed a yearslong relationship during which they shared a home. But it might also allow Mr. Banks and Ms. Wright to claim spousal privilege, which gives them the right to decline to testify against each other in court, should that become necessary, legal experts said.

The couple’s home in Harlem was visited by federal authorities in early September. Both Mr. Banks’s and Ms. Wright’s phones were seized by investigators, who appeared to be conducting a separate investigation from the one that resulted in Mr. Adams’s indictment.

The couple had intended to get married this summer, but Ms. Wright’s mother fell ill, according to two of the people familiar with their plans. The third person said the couple had been making wedding plans for a while, well before their phones were seized. The three people asked not to be named to preserve their relationships with the couple.

Regardless of when Mr. Banks and Ms. Wright originally planned to marry, Saturday’s ceremony could help the couple weather the investigations, said Erin Murphy, a professor at the New York University School of Law.

Under the law, she noted, spousal privilege is “very broad” and allows someone to refuse to testify against their spouse, with very few exceptions.

Ms. Murphy said that Mr. Banks and Ms. Wright could have also asserted a common-law marriage.

“This strikes me as two people in a long-term committed relationship who perhaps chose to formalize that relationship for legal clarity or to ensure access to the privileges the state gives to marriages,” Ms. Murphy said.

All three people familiar with the wedding plans disputed the idea that the couple were getting married to invoke spousal privilege.

Mr. Banks refers to Ms. Wright as the love of her life, both publicly and privately, according to the people.

“These people have been in love and engaged for a while, and the Vineyard is their happy place,” one of the people said. “They need a little bit of joy.”

Mayor Adams was not present at the wedding, according to a schedule released by his office.

Many state and local leaders have joined a growing chorus of calls for the mayor’s resignation since news of his indictment broke Wednesday. Mr. Adams has adamantly denied the charges against him, and he suggested during a news conference on Thursday that he had been unfairly targeted by political enemies.

There are at least three other investigations into City Hall officials besides the one that led to Mr. Adam’s indictment. Four top officials have announced their resignations since the beginning of September, including Mr. Banks, who will step down at the end of the year. He and Ms. Wright are under scrutiny in a bribery investigation involving Mr. Banks’s brothers, Philip B. Banks III, the deputy mayor for public safety, and Terence Banks, who runs a consulting firm.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove Mayor Adams from office, has said only that she would carefully consider the situation before deciding how to proceed.

She spent part of Saturday speaking with fellow state leaders about Mayor Adams and the investigation.

The governor and the mayor spoke for 10 minutes on Thursday, before she released a public statement saying that New Yorkers “reserve to know that their municipal government is working effectively, ethically and in the best interests of the people” and that Mr. Adams needed to “show the city that he is able to lead in that manner.”

On the call, Ms. Hochul did not specifically discuss the possibility of removing Mr. Adams, but she did tell the mayor that she wanted to see him take steps to regain the confidence of New Yorkers, including by replacing some of his senior management team , according to a person briefed on the call.

It was not immediately clear if Ms. Hochul had singled out specific officials she would like to see removed.

A spokesperson with the mayor’s office declined to comment about Ms. Hochul’s statement or Mr. Banks and Ms. Wright’s wedding.

On Saturday, the Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the mayor’s closest supporters, urged Ms. Hochul not to take action to remove Mr. Adams.

“We’re going to see where the evidence is, but we are not going to stand by silently and let Governor Hochul not know that some of us are saying: ‘Do not change the process and the precedent,’” Mr. Sharpton said during a regularly scheduled rally hosted by his National Action Network.

Mr. Sharpton’s response to the investigation has been measured. On Thursday, I expressed concern that the intrigue might hurt national Democrats ahead of the November election.

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