Frank Carone, the chief of staff for former New York City Mayor Eric Adams, was indicted in June for allegedly taking $120,000 in bribes in relation to a migrant shelter in the city. Prosecutors allege that Carone, in his capacity as Adams’ first chief of staff, pressured officials in the city’s Department of Social Services to award a $6.8 million contract to Yan’s Long Island City hotel in exchange for the money.

Following his indictment and arraignment, Carone's attorney Arthur Aidala noted that the investigation began under the Biden administration and believes Carone was targeted.

"Let's just start off with the long day that he's had to talk about how unfairly this whole prosecution is," Aidala said. "Mr. Carone and his team have been in constant contact with the Department of Justice and this office from the very beginning and have taken extraordinary steps. Every time Mr. Carone left the jurisdiction for business purposes or family purposes voluntarily telling them where he was going and for how long."

"This indictment is based on assumptions. Assumption after assumption after assumption," he continued. "We all know what happens when we assume."

"This is a perfect example of the government deciding on a target. They decided that Frank Carone was going to be a target, and they looked at every aspect of his life. They looked at his priest ... they looked at his relationship with his priest," Aidala said.

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"It's sad that this is where we are right now in the criminal justice system. Why is Frank Carone a target? I don't know. They're not going to tell us that. Is it because he and the Mayor of the City of New York at the time, when the migrant crisis was out of control, stood tall and fought for New Yorkers? To the White House? And said, 'Hey, you guys gotta do something.' They were told shut up, shut up until after the election and then we'll help you out."

And in a recent episode of the "When You Know You Know Unleashed" podcast on Spotify, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen spoke with attorney Ethan Gerber about the case against Carone and what they see as prosecutorial overreach, as well as a broader conversation about "lawfare, the weaponization of the justice system, coercive tactics, and whether Americans can truly get a fair day in court."

"I want to cut through all the noise," Cohen said. "The government claims that Frank Carone risked his entire career and his freedom for a $120,000 kickback on a $6.8 million deal. Now, of course, I want to be clear that that's less than 1.8 percent. Does that make any logical sense to you?"

"No, of course not," replied Ethan Gerber. Carone used to be a partner at Gerber's firm. "Frank Carone, before he was chief of staff, was an executive partner in my firm, which is a large firm. He was the President of the Brooklyn Bar Association at one point, he managed a mortgage bank. The man is a very, very wealthy man."

"I know Frank Carone almost as long as I know you, Michael," Gerber continued. "We've known each other for over 20 years and I know Frank a little bit less than that, but about 15, 16 years."

Like Carone's attorney Aidala, Cohen and Gerber say this started under the Biden administration during the migrant crisis.

"The government attacked Eric pretty freaking hard," Gerber said. "And it really started, if you think back around the time of the migrant crisis, when Eric was going up to Washington and he was trying to get the Biden administration on board about what was going on with the migrant crisis and sometimes saying not so nice things. But they really went after him in a big way."

Gerber added, "And because that seemed to be the genesis of it ... eventually President Trump, when he had the ability to, he dropped the charges, he had the Justice Department back off the charges. But they still kept going after Frank. And I'll tell you, Michael, it made me think of what happened to you."

"They even went after, for example, you know Frank is a Knight of the Catholic Church," Gerber said. "He's very friendly with his priest and his Monsignor. They even went after a connection that they too had in business together."

As the conversation continued, Gerber laid out the indictment. 

"So there seems to be this is what they found after three years of digging into every single facet of Frank Carone, of every business he was involved in, and he was involved in quite a few," Gerber said. "And all the people he know and all the contacts he knew, they came up with this: somebody he knows wanted something out of government, wanted to apply, and eventually got it."

"Wow," interjected Cohen. "Knock me over with a feather."

"And the indictment ... one of the interesting things about the indictment is it seems that the whole smoking gun here is that somebody texted somebody on who wanted to buy it. 'Hey, maybe we can talk to Frank.'" Gerber said. "It happened to be the very day that he left office, so maybe he was on television and they saw that, 'Hey he's leaving office.'"

"I think there's one more [smoking gun]," Cohen said. "Which to me is even more ridiculous than the one that you just mentioned. Where the DOJ relied heavily on some vague text where Frank says that he's not happy until the past is worked out. I think they're talking about some dollar amount. So how can these prosecutors definitively claim that this was a mob-style extortion demand for bribe money, rather than ... a business partner simply asking for some long overdue legitimate legal fee to be paid?"

"We see federal prosecutors weaponize the Department of Justice through lawfare all the time," Cohen continued. "They overreach, they stretch these novel legal theories, and they turn routine financial transactions into these multi-count federal indictments just to make a political point."

"Now, again, having been through the crosshairs of federal prosecutors myself, you remember that case, United States versus Michael Cohen. I do know firsthand how the government manufactures leverage. Isn't this just another classic play from that exact same DOJ playbook?" Cohen asked.

"Yeah, I think it is," Gerber replied. "What ... in my earliest incantation of being a lawyer, I was an assistant District Attorney and, you know, being an ADA and sometimes being a federal prosecutor is a little bit different. And one of the differences is that only prosecuted things that were already crimes and already under arrest, right? Here, they seem to really dig deep looking. They have the defendant, they know who the defendant is, they just don't know what the crime is."

"I was the target because their goal was to go after President Trump," Cohen said. "I mean, you're not wrong when you say just imagine raiding a law office, any law office is very rare, but how about raiding the law office of the sitting President of the United States? That the FBI raided my home, the hotel I was staying in, my law office, all for what? For a check? By the way, not too far and not to dissimilar to what Frank did."

"It should really make no difference whether you're Republican, Democrat, or independent, whether you liked Mayor Adams or not," Cohen continued later in the discussion. "This is about an American citizen."

Frank Carone was released on a $2 million bond following his arraignment. His attorneys have maintained his innocence and argue the case exemplifies prosecutorial overreach and political targeting stemming from the Biden-era migrant crisis; with the trial now scheduled for early May 2027, the matter will ultimately be decided in court.