Professor Paul Cassell, University of Utah College of Law:

"Count 2 [of the Mayor Adams indictment] appear[s] ... to have an institutional victim: the City of New York. Count 2 alleges that Adams committed wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343, to obtain "matching funds." Specifically, Count 2 alleges that

"From at least in or about 2018 through at least in or about 2024, in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere, ERIC ADAMS, the defendant, knowingly having devised and intending to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud, and for obtaining money and property by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, transmitted and caused to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, and television communication in interstate and foreign commerce, writings, signs, signals, pictures, and sounds, for the purpose of executing such scheme and artifice, to wit, ADAMS  participated in a scheme to fraudulently obtain Matching Funds for the Adams Campaigns by falsely claiming that contributions qualified for Matching Funds when, in fact those contributions did not."

Indictment, ¶ 57 (emphasis added). Elsewhere in the indictment, the amount of the matching funds illegally obtained is alleged to be "over $10 million" based on "false certifications that the campaign complied with the law, when in fact Eric Adams … knowingly and repeatedly relied on illegal contributions." And the indictment further alleges that New York City has a "matching funds" program that distributes funds based on a candidate's compliance with the law. As I read the indictment, then, it alleges that New York City was defrauded out of more than $10 million in funds—which would make New York City a "crime victim" under the Crime Victims' Rights Act."

Reason: Free Minds and Free Markets, February 19, 2025 (empasis added)