A former top mayoral staffer who was fired for calling Charlie Kirk’s assassination “karma” has been indicted for running two separate pay-to-play schemes that netted him $16,000 total in bribes.
Tony Herbert, who served as then-Mayor Eric Adams’ citywide public housing liaison, allegedly pocketed $11,000 cash from a security company executive in exchange for pressuring City Hall officials to steer NYCHA contracts to his firm, court papers unsealed in Manhattan federal court state.
“This is what we do, bro,” Herbert allegedly told the executive while waiting for a meeting with senior City Hall officials about the security agreements in 2024.
This is what we do. I mean, ain’t nobody gonna do it for us,” he said, according to court documents.
In the second alleged scheme, Herbert is accused of taking $5,000 in kickbacks from a funeral director after getting the city to approve $24,000 in public funds for burial services for low income people, according to the indictment.
The embattled longtime community activist was also caught securing a $20,000 loan from the federal COVID-era Paycheck Protection Program for a fake cake business.
Prosecutors charged that Herbert submitted a false invoice to secure the loan for $810 in January 2020 for a 1980s-themed tie-dye cake. The feds deduced the invoice was fraudulent in part because the email listed was created the day before the PPP application.
Herbert, 61, also worked in the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit during his time in the Adams administration from February 2022 to September 2025 — when he was infamously canned over his insensitive comments about Kirk’s death, City Hall said at the time.
Herbert pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court Tuesday afternoon to the indictment charging him with six counts of bribery and loan fraud.
“These charges are bogus. I was doing my job,” Herbert scoffed to reporters on his way out of the Lower Manhattan courthouse, after he was released on $50,000 bond.
Herbert claimed both the security company executive and the funeral home director were longtime friends who he was working with to secure city services.
He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
The bombshell indictment comes just months after Adams former aide and close confidante Ingrid Lewis-Martin was hit with a fresh batch of bribery charges in August.
Adams himself was indicted on allegations of scooping up more than $120,000 in travel perk bribes from Turkish nationals to fast-track the opening of the Turkish Consulate building in Manhattan.
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