NYC Mayor Changes Plan to Hire Brother: Now, He’ll Be Unpaid

New York Mayor Eric Adams has backed off plans for a $210,000-a-year, city-paid security job for his brother, who will now volunteer instead as an advisor.

Adams’ office confirmed the change Thursday, after the city Conflicts of Interest Board granted a waiver for Bernard Adams to serve as “senior advisor for mayoral security.” The retired New York Police Department sergeant will make $1 a year, so he can officially be a city employee.

“Bernard Adams is uniquely qualified for this job,” mayoral spokesperson Maxwell Young said in a statement, adding that said the mayor’s brother offered to be unpaid “to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

The decision comes after repeated rejiggering of Bernard Adams’ proposed role in his brother’s administration. The new mayor, a Democrat who took office Jan. 1, initially tapped his brother as a deputy police commissioner.

Then, as the mayor’s office began work on seeking Conflicts of Interest Board approval, the plan shifted to making Bernard Adams the $210,000-a-year head of the mayor’s security detail, which is staffed by police officers and housed under the NYPD.

“My brother understands me, and if I had to put my life in someone’s hands, I want to put it in the hands of the person that I trust deeply,” the mayor said at the time.

City law bars public servants from using their position to obtain “any financial gain, contract, license, privilege or other private or personal advantage, direct or indirect” for themselves or an associate, including a sibling. The Conflicts of Interest Board, an independent agency that enforces the law, can issue waivers if it finds that conduct doesn’t run counter to the city’s “purposes and interests.”

The board granted waivers for the city’s last mayor, Democrat Bill de Blasio, to appoint his wife as the unpaid chair of the city’s charitable arm, and for Republican-turned-independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s sister to serve unpaid as the city’s commissioner for the United Nations.