NYC Mayor Eric Adams is at war with the New York Times over a story involving a dead police officer

In their latest aggressive hit on NYC Mayor Eric Adams, the New York Times ran a story accusing the Big Apple leader and his aides of faking a photo of a fallen colleague that he claimed to have kept in his wallet for years.

Adams, a Democrat and former police chief, claimed to have a photo of Officer Robert Venable, who died on duty in 1987, in his wallet during his first month in office.

Adams made the claim following the tragic 2022 deaths of two New York City police officers, who were shot while responding to a domestic disturbance.

A week later, Adams showed Venable’s photo during a photo shoot with the New York Times in his office. He then retold the story during multiple interviews and a Police Academy ceremony.

Adams, a Democrat and former police chief, claimed to have a photo of Officer Robert Venable (pictured), who died on duty in 1987, in his wallet during his first month in office

During a 2022 NYT interview, Adams said the photo was “always in my wallet until my wallet got too bulky.”

“He was a very dear friend and it keeps me engaged,” he added.

But the Times recently revealed that the photo is fake. Not only had it not been in the mayor’s purse for years, but it had been created by City Hall employees in the days after Adams filed the original claim.

A photo of Venable was found on Google, printed in black and white and made to look worn out using the old high school history project trick of pouring a few drops of coffee on it.

Two former city hall employees who spoke to the Times said they were made aware of the photo and its true origins last year, shortly after its creation.

A spokesman for the mayor lashed out at the newspaper, without fully denying the accusation.

“The Times’ attempts to attack the mayor here would be laughable if it weren’t so utterly insulting,” Fabien Levy said in a statement Wednesday. He called the story part of a “campaign to portray the mayor as a liar.”

He insisted that Adams in fact carried a photo of Venable decades after the officer’s murder, but declined to answer more questions about the newly printed, coffee-stained photo.

The photo Adams publicly showed of his fallen friend was allegedly printed by Google staffers and stained with coffee to look older than he was

City Hall officials lashed out at the Times for consistently trying to portray the mayor as a liar

Several former transit police colleagues questioned by the Times confirmed that Adams and Venable had been friends.

The Times characterized many of Adams’s quirky, down-to-earth anecdotes as “difficult to verify.”

He was memorably forced to retract his claim that he is vegan when multiple reports came to light that he ate fish at some of Manhattan’s hottest restaurants.

During the campaign, his claim that he lived in a Brooklyn apartment was also challenged by the Times, and several of his real estate holdings continue to raise concerns among several of the newspaper’s journalists.

Adams previously described Venable as “one of my best friends” and said he “died when he got shot in the head while responding to a job.”

“We were supposed to leave that week and go on vacation together,” he said.

January Venable, Robert’s daughter, who was eight years old when her father was killed, said she couldn’t remember ever meeting Adams until this year. However, she didn’t seem particularly concerned about the authenticity of the mayor’s claims about the photo.

“All I can say is that whether it’s in his wallet or not, the fact that people still think of my dad all these years later — whatever the meaning behind it — makes me thankful he’s not forgotten.” , she said. .