NYC Must Close Loophole Allowing Eric Adams 2025 Campaign to Pay at Least $600K to Anonymous Shell Companies

Reinvent Albany is deeply concerned by yesterday’s story on WNBC Channel 4 showing that Eric Adams’ 2025 campaign for mayor paid anonymous, out-of-state shell companies roughly $600,000. These companies have no websites or internet presence, are not registered to do business in New York with the Department of State as required by law, and two of them share the same address at a notorious LLC farm in Sheridan, Wyoming.  

Based on the concerns raised by Channel 4’s reporting, Reinvent Albany urges New York City to require political campaigns to report the names of the human owners of all companies paid by the campaigns in their expenditure reports – and to publish their identities on the Campaign Finance Board’s (CFB) Follow The Money website. Mayor Mamdani and the City Council should work together with the Campaign Finance Board on legislation to close this loophole.

Reinvent Albany notes that the names of hundreds of individuals paid directly by NYC political campaigns are already published on CFB’s website. Thus, there should be no expectation that the people behind LLCs should be kept secret – particularly since candidates may use public matching funds to make these payments (Adams was denied matching payments). Furthermore, LLCs that make campaign contributions or expenditures disclose their beneficial owners to the NYS Board of Elections, and are accessible to the public through Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests.  

Anonymous, Out-of-State LLCs Paid by Adams Campaign 2025 (May not be complete list.)
Source: NYC Campaign Finance Board