Two Years After Federal Raids, an Eric Adams Power Couple Seeks Podcast Fame

In the predawn darkness of Sept. 4, 2024, city and federal law enforcement agents knocked on the heavy wooden door of the ornate Hamilton Heights townhouse Schools Chancellor David Banks and his then-fiancée, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, called home.

Agents with the FBI and city Department of Investigation confiscated their cellphones that morning as part of a broader corruption investigation targeting the top levels of then-Mayor Eric Adams’ administration.

Banks and Wright would soon resign their powerful positions as revelation after revelation made clear the investigation went far beyond the couple. Banks’ brothers — Philip, a deputy mayor and former top police official, and Terence, a consultant — also had their phones seized, as did then-Police Commissioner Edward Caban. Philip Banks and Caban also resigned amid a wave of scandals that saw Adams himself indicted on separate federal corruption charges.

That was then. 

In recent months, Banks and Wright — now husband and wife — have a different type of visitor arriving at their home: guests on “The Beacon and Blueprint,” a podcast the couple has hosted over the last several months out of their living room.

For the formerly powerful couple, their re-entry into public life indicates they believe the dark clouds of scandal are behind them — despite the fact that prosecutors in the offices of U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg continue to investigate members of the Adams administration, sources familiar with the probes said. 

Which is why it was a surprise when Banks told The City Reporter that Bragg and another top law enforcement official in the state, Attorney General Letitia James, have agreed to come on their show.

“We’ve known these folks for a long time. I’ve known Alvin Bragg for years. We haven’t had him on but he’ll be coming on,” David Banks said in an interview. “Tish James is agreeing to come on.”

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Since its debut in February, many high-profile New Yorkers have appeared on the show, including former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (currently Gov. Kathy Hochul’s running mate for lieutenant governor), City Comptroller Mark Levine and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.

The contrast between the back-then of investigators seizing cellphones and now, when the pair are attracting a wide variety of New York City elected officials to their show, presents an interesting dynamic.

Will Manhattan DA Appear?

Bragg’s situation is the most unusual. He is currently prosecuting three of Eric Adams’ top aides on bribery charges, including the mayor’s former chief advisor, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, his former building commissioner, Eric Ulrich, and Jesse Hamilton, the longtime friend whom Adams appointed to handle the city’s leases.

All of these indicted cases remain active and Bragg has made clear his investigation of the Adams administration is ongoing.

The City Reporter tried to get Bragg to comment on how his participation on “The Beacon and Blueprint” would reflect on his continuing pursuit of corruption, given law enforcement’s past interest in the show’s hosts. His spokesperson, Danielle Filson, confirmed Bragg and other DAs were in talks about appearing on the show, but she declined further comment.

Grant Fox, a spokesperson for James, the state’s top law enforcer, declined to discuss Banks’ assertion she’d agreed to come on the show.

A spokesperson for the Hochul-Adams campaign, Matt Jensen, also declined to answer The City Reporter’s inquiry about Adrienne Adams’ appearance on the podcast.

In an interview, Banks said he would not discuss anything about the FBI and DOI probe that rocked his tenure as schools chancellor. But during an appearance on NY1 with journalist Errol Louis where Banks and Wright appeared as guests, Louis brought up the wave of scandal that swept Adams’ City Hall and how the couple navigate questions about that today.

‘Swept Up’

Banks admitted “it was a little bit of a cloud when we left, but that cloud was something that we could not control. We were kind of swept up in a larger set of circumstances that was happening around us, and that’s very unfortunate when that happens, particularly when you’ve had a stellar career and it’s been spotless for decades. 

“Sometimes these things are out of your control and you just do the best that you can and keep moving on,” he told Louis.

These many months later, the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office has yet to formally close the investigation of Banks and his brothers. As recently as last fall, sources familiar with the investigation told The City Reporter, witnesses were still being questioned about whether Terence Banks had improperly tapped into his brothers’ influence to benefit clients of a consulting firm he formed at the start of Adams’ term.

The Consultant Brother

The behind-the-scenes interaction between the siblings during their time in power has been documented by The City Reporter via emails, records and interviews.

When he was chancellor, David Banks met with the CEO of one of Terence Banks’ clients, a tech firm called 21StCentEd, and later appeared in a promotional video for the company in which he was identified as chancellor of the city school system. After hiring Terence Banks, 21StCentEd snagged 138 smaller no-bid contracts with the city Department of Education worth $2 million in total.

Emails from September 2022 obtained via the Freedom of Information Law show Terence Banks forwarded to his brother David a proposed mentor program from a firm called Lockstep Ventures that wanted to work with the Department of Education. He made sure to include First Deputy Mayor Wright in the conversation as well.

Emailing Lockstep executives, Terence Banks — seeming to speak for the chancellor and Wright — wrote, “I have included the Deputy Mayor and the Chancellors team on this thread. We are very interested about the opportunity to collaborate on this project. Please suggest a few dates so that we can see what works for all. We have some suggestions to share that may complement your proposal to ensure success.”

David Banks declined to answer questions about these interactions with his brother’s clients.

‘No Reason to Avoid Them’

NY1’s Louis, who also appeared as a guest on “The Beacon and Blueprint” and has been friends with the Banks family for decades, noted in an interview that David Banks and Sheena Wright remain in a kind of legal limbo.

“They haven’t been cleared. They haven’t been charged,” he observed. “And as far as I know, they haven’t been interviewed [by law enforcement]. This could go on for years. You have to decide to deal with people, because they’re interesting people with a podcast … or you kind of condemn them to exile until the U.S. attorney figures out what he’s going to do.”

He added, “There was so much funky stuff that went on between Eric Adams and that office. I have no idea what’s going to come of this. Until that’s resolved, I see no reason to avoid them.”

Comptroller Levine, whose job includes rooting out corrupt practices in city government, also saw no reason to avoid Banks and Wright. He appeared on a June 30 episode, telling the couple, “We want to make sure there’s no fraud in government and that things are working well.”

Asked about the circumstances under which the show’s hosts left City Hall, Levine said through a spokesperson: “We were invited to have a public conversation about our work and how we are addressing the affordability crisis affecting so many New Yorkers. We do not have information beyond what has been publicly reported, nor do we have a comment related to the hosts.”

The subject of Banks and Wright’s interaction with law enforcement surfaced — at least by implication — during the podcast’s first episode on Feb. 24. The topic was Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and one of the invited guests, Rev. Kirsten John Foy, brought up Adams.

Adams was indicted on bribery and campaign finance fraud charges in September 2024 but escaped trial after the Trump Justice Department intervened, in part to win Adams’ cooperation in the federal administration’s mass deportations. Discussing how Adams’ downfall contributed to Mamdani’s rise, Foy said Adams “dragged down a whole lot of good people, present company included.”

“He hurt a whole lot of Black people,” Foy said, to which Wright responded, “Uh-huh.”

Banks then agreed, in part, with Foy’s take on the mayor who’d appointed him to run the nation’s biggest public school system.

“Eric Adams, while the administration accomplished a range of things, I think Eric was a disappointment to a lot of people and I think you’re right, in terms of how it set a context for Zohran Mamdani to emerge.”

“The Beacon and Blueprint,” in a sense, is an attempt by Banks and Wright to rewrite the narrative. Both had long careers before City Hall: Wright as head of United Way of New York City, Banks as founder of Eagle Academy, a network of all-boys high schools he ran for years before Adams named him chancellor.

‘We Still Have a Voice’

Signal Co. No. 1, the company producing the podcast, didn’t immediately respond to a query about the size of its audience. “The Beacon and Blueprint” has just over 2,300 followers on Instagram.

On NY1, Banks claimed that after he and Wright left City Hall, some leaders in the Black community and other elected officials approached them and said: “We still need to hear from you.”

“We still have a voice and we still want to serve our communities,” Banks added.

Nevertheless, Banks and Wright so far have said little about their time in the Adams administration, where they entered with relatively unblemished resumes and exited under a pall. When Louis asked, “People want to hear what went on at City Hall. Are we going to hear anything on that?” Wright did not directly respond.

“We were there for three years,” she said. “It was a lot in three years. It did feel like dog years. But there was a lot we learned from that experience … and a lot that we accomplished.”

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