IN BLACK AND WHITE

NYC Mayor Accused of Touting a Phony Pic of Fallen NYPD Comrade

Eric Adams’ aides reportedly grabbed the pic off Google and used coffee stains to make it look more weathered.

On multiple occasions, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has flashed an old photo that he claims to carry in his wallet of Robert Venable, a fallen fellow officer and friend from Adams’ days as an NYPD cop. He would often reference the photo at new conferences about crime and police deaths. “I still think about Robert,” he said at one event after two cops were killed on the job in Harlem. But The New York Times reported Thursday that the photo has not really been stuffed in Adams’ pocket all these years—and was in fact only recently created and made to look old by city employees. The Times, citing people familiar with the matter, including City Hall employees, found that the photo was printed off in black and white from Google after Adams first claimed to carry it with him. Aides then reportedly used coffee stains to give it a more dated look. A spokesperson for Adams didn’t dispute the reporting but said, “The Times’s efforts to attack the mayor here would be laughable if it were not so utterly offensive.”