A Chinese business titan pleaded guilty on Monday to federal charges that he made more than $10,000 in straw donor contributions to political candidates — including, a person familiar with the case said, to a New York congressman and Mayor Eric Adams.
Hui Qin, 56, of Old Westbury, N.Y., who was once listed on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires, ran a now-defunct entertainment business called SMI Culture. But he has been in federal custody since the fall, when he was arrested at an apartment he kept at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan on charges of using fake identification.
Mr. Qin asked others to contribute to political campaigns of his choosing, and he agreed to reimburse them, in 2021 and 2022, according to prosecutors. The other figures who received donations were Representative Andrew Garbarino of Long Island and Allan Fung, a former mayor of Cranston, R.I., who ran for Congress, the person familiar with the case said. Both are Republicans, while Mr. Adams is a Democrat.
Mr. Qin concealed his activities from the officials he was raising money for, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case. As a result, they unwittingly filed false reports.
Breon S. Peace, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement that Mr. Qin had admitted to “engaging in a brazen web of deception” that spread lies to the authorities overseeing elections.
“Ensuring election integrity and rooting out campaign contribution fraud are priorities of the Department of Justice,” Mr. Peace said in a statement. “No one is above the law, no matter their wealth or station in society.”
Vito Pitta, Mr. Adams’s lawyer for his 2021 campaign, said, “As the federal government made clear today, the campaign had no knowledge of a straw donor scheme — and no member of the campaign has been charged with or accused of any wrongdoing.”
Mr. Fung and Representative Garbarino did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Qin’s legal woes go far beyond the charges to which he pleaded guilty in federal court in Central Islip, N.Y., on Monday. In September, Mr. Qin was arrested by the police in Nassau County, who charged that he had tried to attack his ex-wife, with whom he still lived, before she was scheduled to testify in a civil case against him in Manhattan federal court.
He had tried to bash open a locked door with an ax in the September episode, which came months after another attack in which he attempted to strangle her, prosecutors said.
Mr. Qin was being sued in Manhattan by a Chinese investment management group to enforce a $450 million foreign arbitration award against him. He was alleged to have transferred ownership of his Long Island home to his ex-wife and ex-mother-in-law for only $10 after arbitration began in China.
He also pleaded guilty on Monday to immigration fraud and producing false identification. He had also used the name Muk Lam Li for years, but omitted that information on his green card application, prosecutors said.
As part of a deal with prosecutors, he agreed to leave the United States after serving his sentence. His sentencing is set for May 14; prosecutors said they would ask the judge for a sentence no longer than six months if Mr. Qin abides by the terms of the plea agreement.
A lawyer for Mr. Qin, Henry Mazurek, said his client was pleased that the case had been resolved.
“After years of investigation, the government’s case resulted in a plea in which they recommended no more than six months’ imprisonment,” he said. “Mr. Qin is happy to have this case behind him and looks forward to re-establishing his business career outside the United States.”
Mr. Adams’s campaigns and his administration have become the focus of several investigations.
In September, prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office indicted Eric Ulrich, Mr. Adams’s former senior adviser and then buildings commissioner, on charges of taking bribes. In November, F.B.I. agents searched the home of the mayor’s inexperienced chief fund-raiser, Brianna Suggs, as well as the homes of Rana Abbasova, an aide in Mr. Adams’s international affairs office, and Cenk Öcal, a former Turkish Airlines executive who served on the mayor’s transition team.
Days later, agents stopped Mr. Adams on the street, asked his security detail to step aside and seized his electronic devices, part of a criminal inquiry into whether his 2021 campaign conspired to funnel illegal foreign donations into his coffers.
For investigators, straw donors have been a recurring theme.
In February, Dwayne Montgomery, a retired police inspector who had been friendly with the mayor, pleaded guilty to conspiring to direct straw donors to the mayor’s campaign. Two other donors named in the same indictment, the brothers Shahid Mushtaq and Yahya Mushtaq, pleaded guilty in October.