A shadow aide to Mayor Eric Adams has stepped down as head of the city's immigration contracting efforts, the latest senior personnel changes to come amid growing federal scrutiny surrounding City Hall.
The mayor revealed during his weekly question and answer session on Tuesday that his chief of staff, Camille Joseph Verlach, has taken over top adviser Tim Pearson's role in doling out lucrative immigration services contracts.
But Adams made it clear that the changes were not due to a lack of confidence in Pearson, who sources say is under federal investigation into possible bribery in the awarding of immigration contracts.
Instead, he praised Pearson and promised to provide The Post with a list of “clear examples” of contracts that Pearson, his friend for decades, has renegotiated for the city’s benefit.
“The goal is to save taxpayer money, and I think we've been very successful in reducing those costs,” he said.
City Hall officials could not immediately provide the examples Adams promised.
Last week, the mayor claimed, without providing evidence, that Pearson's work has saved the city huge amounts of money.
“We asked him to do a study that saved us hundreds of millions of dollars by cutting costs on everything from security contracts to other contracts,” Adams said.
But Pearson's role in overseeing contracts to keep migrants safe has long drawn suspicion, even before the federal government began focusing on accusations that he selected contractors in exchange for bribes.
One city official, Chief Business Diversity Officer Michael Garner, bragged in an internal meeting a few months ago that Pearson had done 20 immigration safety transactions in just one week.
The lawsuit, filed in April, alleges that Pearson told employees at an unnamed city department, the City Hall Service Evaluation Bureau, that he planned to line his own pockets.
“People are doing very well on these contracts,” Pearson said, according to the lawsuit.
“I have to go get mine too. Where are my crumbs?”
The mayor has so far resisted pressure to fire Pearson and other officials under federal investigation, including Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks.
Apparently, his reluctance was a fatal blow to the city's chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, who resigned last week after it emerged she had pushed for the firing of Pearson and Banks.
Adams spent much of his weekly press conference this week maintaining a pretense of business as usual, insisting that recent events like the federal government's raid on the home of Interim NYPD Commissioner Tom Donlon over 20-year-old documents would not interfere with his day-to-day work.
The Q&A came after it was revealed the federal government had expanded its investigation into Turkish influence to five more countries, the city's security officer was under investigation for alleged corruption and two prominent commissioners were facing resignation.
And that was all just on Monday.
Since a stunning federal raid on Sept. 4 that seized the devices of numerous top officials, including then-NYPD Commissioner Edward Cabana, the trickle of revelations and scandals has turned into a near-daily flood that has consumed the Adams administration.
The search revealed that the federal government is not only investigating Adams' ties to Turkey and his campaign fundraising, but also potential broader corruption among City Hall officials with longstanding ties to the mayor and troubled backgrounds, family members or both.
But Adams said he still loves his job.
“I'm more excited to be mayor now than I was when I took the oath of office,” he said.
