Eric Adams was indicted Thursday on federal corruption charges, the first sitting mayor in New York history to be indicted on federal charges. The indictment charged Adams with five counts of bribery, wire fraud and soliciting donations from foreigners.

I wish I could say I was surprised. But I saw this coming.

In 2021, during a mayoral debate, I said, “Eric, we all know that everywhere you’ve gone there has been investigations into corruption, both city and federal. You’ve hit the rare trifecta of corruption investigations. Is that really something you did?” what we want in the next mayor? (When) you enter City Hall, it will be exactly the same.

This is someone who has managed to break the rules at every step up the political ladder. Even the union he once belonged to, the police commissioners’ union, had chosen not to support him. One of the reasons I did this was because I thought I could keep good, clean and competent administration.

After Eric won, I hoped it would work out. My son went to public school. But when asked how I thought it would go, I privately said, “When you put someone who is undisciplined and unprincipled in charge of a lot of people and resources, bad things tend to happen.”

Eric had a habit of hiring close friends, associates, and confidantes for important positions that may or may not have matched their abilities or qualifications. I thought it was very likely that his government would be dogged by corruption, cronyism and self-dealing.

Even with these expectations, the past few weeks have been astonishing. A police chief, schools chancellor, chief public defender and the head of the Department of Health are all resigning. Countless employees under a cloud of federal investigations and seized personal devices.

And now this historic indictment.

I read the indictment with a mixture of curiosity and disbelief.

Do I believe Eric Adams accepted luxury flights and accommodations from the Turkish government and then tried to return the favor? Certainly.

Even more disturbing, do I think Eric Adams solicited donations from foreigners? Yes, I do.

When I ran against Eric in 2021, I was surprised by his fundraising. I had a national network and ended up with the highest number of individual donors – 21,960 – in the history of New York City elections. But at every turn, Eric kept pace.

Now it appears that some of his campaign money may have come from foreigners. New York City’s donor matching program provides a powerful incentive for fraud: donations from city residents were matched eight to one, up to $250. That means if someone donates $250, your campaign will receive $250 from them and another €2,000 from the city.

In this context, if someone were running a small business in New York with twelve employees, the temptation would be to say, “Hey, we’re going to say that you all donated $250, and that makes $24,000 for our candidate! ” If you were the head of this small company, you could put the money towards your employees – say $3,000 – and the candidate would walk away with $27,000, most of which came from taxpayers.

I like this matching system; it did what it was intended to do. It gave candidates who were lesser fundraisers, like Kathryn Garcia, a chance to be competitive if they could activate small donors. But bad actors can take advantage of it. And it looks like Eric Adams has done just that. Yes, foreign actors likely used taxpayer money to boost their chosen candidate, hoping to get their backs scratched afterwards.

In recent years, my campaign has been audited by the New York City Campaign Finance Board to see if all donations were properly documented. The truth is that you don’t always have insight into the people donating to your campaign; there are thousands of people who do this for different reasons. But during my campaign, if I found out someone was a foreigner, I immediately said, “Oh, you can’t donate. But if you know New Yorkers, tell them!”

The charge against Eric Adams is, in a sense, depressingly simple: he loved luxury flights and hotels, and would have taken them with him. He saw a shortcut to raise money from his friends with foreign passports and allegedly took it. This was not a very sophisticated operation. Instead, it’s the story of a local politician who was used to promoting trade, but who didn’t realize that some of these things could accelerate his downfall if he got a bigger job and more attention. One of my friends joked, “He doesn’t even do corruption.”

So what now? First, Eric Adams needs to resign. It is now impossible for him to be an effective mayor who can recruit and retain qualified leaders to move the city forward. Who would join this government now, with him at the helm?

According to reports, City Hall staff are almost understandably busy trying to figure out what comes next and who might come or go. I have spoken to rank-and-file employees who are deeply demoralized. Meanwhile, life continues in a vibrant city of 8.3 million inhabitants, seeking the best for themselves and their families.

If Eric Adams really wants the best for the people of New York City, he should resign.

If Adams does not resign, he will lose his bid for re-election next year. His approval rating was historically weak even before these charges were filed. But that is a year of rudderless agencies and festering problems, a year that the people of New York cannot afford. Things don’t stay the same; they either get better or worse, and without leadership they will almost certainly get worse.

The story of Eric Adams is a sad one, of a police officer turned local official, turned mayor, and now a federal defendant. His political career is coming to an end and it’s time for his city to move on.

Andrew Yang is a businessman, lawyer, philanthropist and former candidate for President of the United States. In July 2022, Yang, along with Democrats, Republicans and Independents, launched the new Forward Party to give Americans more choices in our democracy.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author.