It’s July Fourth of Mayor Eric Adams' first year in office. He is standing on a deck in Brooklyn about to embark on a new experience.
“This is my first lesson on how to jet ski,” he tells the camera.
Right beside him for it is Frank Carone. A behind-the-scenes fixture in local politics for years, Carone has never been so close to the captain steering the ship.
What You Need To Know
- Frank Carone was a Brooklyn lawyer before becoming the mayor's chief of staff in 2022
- His tenure in government was short-lived — it lasted less than a year
- He started a consulting firm that now has some big clients with big business before the city
- Meanwhile, Carone is raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for the mayor's re-election campaign
A close confidante of the mayor — he’s described as one of just a handful of people in the room guiding the mayor’s re-election campaign.
An insider lawyer turned City Hall chief of staff turned consultant, Carone spent a year as the mayor’s right-hand man in City Hall, only to abruptly leave at the end of 2022 and start his own consulting and lobbying firm, Oaktree Solutions.
And since then, a source says Carone has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the mayor's reelection campaign. It’s a relationship now raising eyebrows.
“Every single decision of consequence went through his desk, and it was clear that he used that time to build his brand, build his relationships and to start a lobbying firm to influence the very place he set up and organized,” Brooklyn City Councilman Lincoln Restler said.
NY1 spent months examining Carone’s business relationship with City Hall and the nexus with the mayor’s bid for another term.
The exclusive investigation found Carone’s firm has amassed dozens of clients, many of whom have business before the city and are reported publicly in city and state lobbying records.
But many more of his personal clients go unreported — some of the biggest names in politics and real estate have done or are doing business with the mayor’s former chief of staff.
Critics say he is trading in on his close relationship with the mayor in order to amass a small fortune from the city’s biggest power players, people who are potentially looking for favorable action from City Hall.
Carone declined an interview with NY1 for this story.
Through a spokesman, Carone said he does not lobby city officials, but would not answer questions about work for specific clients. Carone often tells people he talks to the mayor every day.
In a statement, his spokesman said: “Oaktree and Frank are making business-to-business connections for — and investments in — sustainable and organic liquor brands, global coffee manufacturers, groundbreaking tech companies and more — which are far from any governance issues in New York City. While Frank is legally permitted to represent clients as a lobbyist, he has opted not to, instead combining his legal, business and media expertise to help clients exceed their goals.”
Even so, Carone did register with the state as a lobbyist earlier this year, but a month later rescinded it. His spokesman said he registered so he could take the city’s lobbying training, as recommended by his compliance counsel.
But if Carone were a registered lobbyist, it could be a political liability for the mayor’s campaign, given his central role in that effort.
In a statement, the campaign’s lawyer, Vito Pitta, said: “The campaign has always followed, and will always follow, all campaign finance rules and laws and will report all fundraising activity appropriately.”
A review of campaign contributions to the mayor’s 2025 campaign, show Carone's clients — that NY1 knows of — donated at least $52,000 to the mayor's bid.
Part of Carone’s business is venture consulting, which includes investing in and advising small startup companies. A spokesman would not provide NY1 with a list of those investments or clients.
But his team emphasizes some have nothing to do with government, like the vodka company Dutch Barn.
But other clients clearly have city business in mind. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in the pursuit of a highly-coveted casino license in the five boroughs.
While chief of staff in 2022, Carone held multiple meetings with developers looking to get one of three state casino licenses, including with Steve Cohen, Sands, Thor Equities, Saks Fifth Avenue, and others.
Now as a private citizen, Carone has done work with Related Companies, SL Green and Bally’s.
In SL Green’s case, a spokesman said Carone is developing a community engagement hiring plan for their casino bid in Times Square. His work was described like this by SL Green’s partner Caesars last year.
“We look forward to Frank working with underrepresented communities in the five boroughs to help us with our workforce development plan,” Brian Agnew, vice president at Caesars Entertainment, said at the time. “It’s folks like that that can be tremendously accretive to our effort here in trying to be successful.”
SL Green has been a longtime supporter of the mayor. A source says the group held a fundraiser for Adams’s re-election campaign this summer at its new building One Madison.
A spokesperson for Related said Carone worked for the developer briefly on housing issues, but never on the casino.
But never before has Carone disclosed his relationship with another casino company: Bally’s. Sources tell NY1 Carone was hired by Bally’s for general consulting in early 2023.
This year, Bally’s announced the completion of a lease transfer with the city to take over the Trump golf course in the Bronx, which is the site of their proposed casino. A source close to the deal says Carone was not involved in those negotiations.
The mayor appeared at the event in January marking the official transfer, unveiling the name of the new course. Carone’s connection with the casino company goes even further — his Midtown office is sublet from the Bally’s chairman Soo Kim.
A Carone spokesman said the space is a standard sublease.
It’s clear Carone has been fostering some of these relationships for some time. A review of his schedules while he was chief of staff shows he had meetings with or about unions, businesses and developers who became or still are clients in his private business.
For one, Carone is working for the hotel workers union, which is currently pushing a piece of controversial legislation to require the licensing of all city hotels.
Carone called the sponsor of the legislation briefly earlier this year to learn of its status. A spokesman for the union said Carone is not lobbying on the bill.
Carone met with the CEO of Northwell Health, Michael Dowling in the summer of 2022. Northwell became one of his first clients when he left city government.
A source says Carone’s contract with Northwell included recouping millions of dollars for the company from the state’s Department of Financial Services after an insurance venture went belly up. His contract with the company has since expired. He was never registered as a lobbyist for the work, but was acting in his legal capacity.
Carone has been tapped in other controversial fights.
Sources tell NY1 he was advising Extell Development, which is planning to build a large tower at the site of the ABC building on the Upper West Side. The developer is trying to avoid a costly land use review process with the city for the project.
The proposal, which has not been unveiled publicly, has already generated community opposition.
“The community is largely against this. They are for right-sized development,” said Sean Khorsandi, the executive director of Landmark West. “I do think that political influence will play a part in this.”
Extell would not discuss the project or Carone with NY1.
“This is a loophole that people like Frank Carone have taken advantage of for years,” Restler said. “They claim to be a strategic advisor or a lawyer for a given client and they just lobby on their behalf but call it by another name and then it doesn’t need to be reported. I worked in the de Blasio administration. I was deputy chief of staff to the mayor. I was a senior advisor to the mayor for many years. This is exactly what Frank did.”
There is no evidence that Carone’s work is breaking city lobbying laws — this revolving door is completely legal. In fact, some critics say the laws need to be strengthened to capture Carone’s work.
Restler wants to create a two-year moratorium on any high-level staffer lobbying city government. Restler and Carone were at odds for many years as a result of Brooklyn Democratic Party infighting.
“It seems far-fetched that he would be running this large lobbying practice, charging phenomenal sums of money to clients and not discussing his concerns and priorities with the mayor and other stakeholders in city government that he helped put in their jobs," Restler said.