State filings show Empower NYC, the super PAC that backed Eric Adams’ 2025 bid, paid more than $1 million to a string of little-known LLCs and vendors, including nearly $300,000 to GOTV Ops Inc. Those payouts have drawn fresh scrutiny as one recipient, longtime Adams associate Tony Herbert, faces federal charges that have kept attention on Adams-era spending.
What The Filings Reveal
Public committee records list top payouts from Empower NYC to Epic Social LLC ($400,000), GOTV Ops Inc. ($292,000), LJP Visyoual LLC ($241,000) and Tesseract Mgmt LLC ($120,000), among others, according to Transparency USA. The committee’s contributor page shows it raised roughly $3.59 million and names large donors including Brock Pierce and Two Trees KG, per Transparency USA. Taken together, those filings indicate the PAC spent about $2 million and had roughly $1.5 million remaining at the time of the last report.
Herbert Indictment And Vendor Ties
Tony Herbert, who served in the mayor’s Community Affairs Unit, was indicted in January by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan on bribery, wire fraud and related charges, according to a Southern District of New York press release. Reporting in the New York Post linked GOTV Ops to Herbert and noted other Empower payouts. That coverage also flagged a payment to Tesseract Management LLC and cited reporting that connects the name Eldon Stone Ross to related business records, while the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Ross was convicted in 2018 for operating an unlicensed bitcoin business. Herbert has pleaded not guilty and is preparing a legal defense, according to local coverage.
Why Watchdogs Are Alarmed
Good-government groups and watchdogs say the pattern of big checks to vendors with limited online footprints, and to companies registered at known LLC-farm addresses, makes it hard for the public to follow contributions and spending. NBC New York previously documented campaign payments to LLCs based at a Sheridan, Wyoming corporate-address service and warned that such filings can mask who actually performs the work. The risk, advocates say, is not just opacity. The city’s rules allow the Campaign Finance Board to investigate and penalize unlawful coordination, but proving coordination in practice is often complicated.
Responses And Next Steps
Adams’ camp has pushed back on the implications. In a statement quoted in reporting, spokesman Todd Shapiro said the mayor “consistently followed both the letter and the spirit of the law,” and Empower NYC leadership referred reporters to counsel, according to the New York Post. Journalists who requested comment from the Campaign Finance Board were told the agency was reviewing the filings or declined to comment directly to some outlets.
Legal Stakes And Oversight Power
The Herbert indictment is a criminal matter being handled by SDNY prosecutors and underscores how investigations into aides and vendors can overlap with campaign-finance concerns, per the SDNY press materials. Separately, the city’s Campaign Finance Board has administrative tools, including fines and the power to request contracts or other records, but watchdogs note that civil enforcement and criminal probes are different tracks with different standards of proof, so multiple agencies could follow different leads.
For now, the public record is the filings themselves. What happens next will depend on whether watchdogs or regulators subpoena contracts, whether the CFB opens a formal inquiry into coordination, and whether prosecutors develop links between alleged conduct and outside spending. Reporters and local watchdogs say they will be watching both the paperwork and any formal actions from oversight bodies.
