NEW YORK — Tony Herbert, a former official in Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and longtime fixture in New York City politics, was arrested by federal authorities Tuesday on sweeping public corruption charges alleging he took bribes and kickbacks during his time at City Hall.​

The Adams associate and perennial political candidate, who was fired from his job last year over a social media post about conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, was hit with bribery, kickback offenses and several fraud charges in an indictment unsealed in Manhattan Federal Court.

He’s accused of abusing his government position in exchange for bribes and kickbacks between October 2022 and May 2025 in two distinct schemes.​Attempts to reach Herbert were unsuccessful. He was expected to appear before a judge later Tuesday.

​“New Yorkers deserve honest and competent public officials,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement.​“As alleged, at a time when Anthony Herbert was serving as City Hall’s liaison to the City’s public housing residents, he engaged in blatant pay-to-play schemes to enrich himself. The women and men of the Southern District of New York are committed to holding accountable government officials who abuse their positions of trust to benefit themselves.”

The indictment alleges he was engaging in public corruption during his stints in Adams’s Community Affairs Unit and as Citywide Public Housing Liaison. In the latter role, Herbert was responsible for engaging with public housing residents in NYCHA developments on City Hall’s behalf.

The first of the two alleged schemes accuses Herbert of soliciting at least $15,000 from an unnamed security company executive in exchange for pressuring city officials to award the company contracts with the city, including for services at NYCHA housing projects. That scheme allegedly included Herbert ghostwriting a letter to two unnamed City Hall officials on the company’s behalf.

Herbert pushed senior administration officials, including the mayor, to hire security for NYCHA, texting Adams in June 2024: “seniors are up in arms, if you can replace security, you will be back at batting 90% with them,” according to the indictment.

“This is what we do, bro. This is what we do,” Herbert allegedly told the security executive ahead of a City Hall meeting. “I mean it’s, ain’t nobody gonna do it for us. That was one of the reasons why I told [the mayor] he had to put the security back in NYCHA so that more, so like, you could, you could, uh, f—-n submit for that.”

In the second scheme, Herbert allegedly took $5,000 in kickbacks from the proceeds of reimbursements to a funeral home for its burial services for low-income New Yorkers, reimbursements he had advised and pressured city officials to sign off on, the indictment details.

In October 2022, Herbert asked the funeral home director over text to send him the names of the deceased so he could “push thr checks for asap,” court docs detail.

When Herbert’s kickback hit a bump in January 2023, after the funeral home director said his bank account was hacked, Herbert told the director, according to the indictment, “Damn bro I was counting on that hookup.”

He was also charged with PPP loan fraud, allegedly making up a bogus “tie dye” 80s-themed cake business during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. He allegedly submitted a fraudulent loan application to a bank, including an invoice for a purported bakery, to secure a $20,418 loan. The feds say Herbert covered up the corruption by filing false financial disclosures that omitted the money he pocketed.

The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and the Internal Revenue Service partnered with the city Department of Investigation in bringing the case. The DOI for years investigated the former mayor and his associates, an expansive probe that helped lead to federal corruption charges against Adams that were dropped by the Trump administration last year.

“This former Mayor’s Office official was responsible for engaging with members of the community on behalf of the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit, first as the Brooklyn Borough Director and then as the liaison between residents and leadership of public housing, and City Hall,” DOI Commissioner Jocelyn E. Strauber said in a statement Tuesday.

“He allegedly exploited this position of trust and influence to enrich himself.”

Herbert has run for office countless times, in failed bids for a seat in the New York State Senate and to be the city’s public advocate.

The News reached out to Adams for comment.

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