Tony Herbert #

Introduction #

Tony Herbert is a longtime New York City community advocate and perennial political candidate whose stint in Mayor Eric Adams’ administration ended twice over: first with a firing over social-media posts about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, and then, four months later, with a federal indictment that cast his city dealings in a far more serious light. Herbert, 61, was a community-affairs staffer in Adams’ office from February 2022, serving as a citywide liaison to the public-housing community at a salary of about $105,000. He was fired on September 11, 2025, after reposting a meme about Kirk’s killing and adding his own caustic commentary, then defending the post in a video rather than taking it down. In January 2026, federal prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed a 25-page indictment accusing him of taking bribes and kickbacks from city vendors and of loan fraud involving a bakery they say did not exist.

Background Information #

Herbert built his profile over decades as a Brooklyn-based community activist and repetitively unsuccessful seeker of public office — the New York Daily News, which obtained word of his firing, described him as “a perennial political candidate” and a friend of Mayor Adams. He joined City Hall’s community-affairs operation in February 2022 and worked as a liaison between the administration and New York City’s public-housing community, a role that had him appearing alongside Adams at events such as the July 2024 opening of a Brownsville recreation center. City Hall spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus noted after his firing that Herbert was not a direct report to the mayor, and that he had already been on leave from the $105,000-a-year position when the Kirk posts appeared.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

Allegations. The firing itself is a documented, employer-confirmed action, and the posts quoted below were captured by reporters before Herbert removed them. No criminal case has ever been brought over the posts; the separate federal charges described later in this page are allegations, and Herbert is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Kirk was fatally shot while speaking at a Utah university on Wednesday, September 10, 2025. The next day, Herbert reposted a meme on his Facebook account that said: “CHARLIE KIRK SPENT HIS ENTIRE LIFE DISPARAGING IMMIGRANTS, DISRESPECTING WOMEN, AND BLAMING BLACK FOLKS, ONLY TO GET SHOT IN ONE OF THE WHITEST PLACES ON EARTH.” To it he added his own caption: “You hit the nail right on the head or should I say racist!!” Reporting by WABC put a parallel post on X in which Herbert called the assassination “karma.”

Rather than delete the post when the backlash began, Herbert doubled down with a video in which he said he did not regret it. In the video, which FOX 5 New York preserved, he said: “Unfortunately, karma has come to collect.” He told viewers the post had been useful because it helped him identify people on his own social feed whom he now believed to be “racist.” While he called the shooting an “unfortunate shooting of a human being,” he added that Kirk had “helped his own demise.” Both the original post and the response video were later removed.

Public Reaction and Consequences #

City Hall moved within a day. In a statement issued to FOX 5’s political reporter, the mayor’s office said: “We unequivocally denounce these remarks, which in no way reflect the values of the Adams administration,” adding that “While the individual who made these comments was already on leave when he posted this video, he is now no longer employed by our administration.” The Daily News reported the firing of Adams’ friend under a headline describing the “karma” remark.

Herbert responded with a statement on Facebook that accepted the firing while disavowing the interpretation of his posts: “Let me be very clear. I don’t support and have never ever supported, condoned, or celebrated the killing of anyone. I accept the consequences of my actions as there are policies in place in the office of the mayor that must be followed, which I violated.”

The story did not end with the firing. On January 13, 2026, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York — the same office that had prosecuted and then dropped the corruption case against Mayor Adams himself — unsealed a 25-page indictment accusing Herbert of taking about $16,000 in bribes and kickbacks from a private-security executive and a funeral-home director whose city business he allegedly helped secure, and of seeking a $20,000 Paycheck Protection Program loan for a baked-goods company prosecutors describe as fake. Gothamist’s account of the indictment notes his September 2025 firing over the Kirk posts as context, tying the two falls together.

Current Status #

Herbert is out of City Hall and under federal indictment. The bribery and loan-fraud charges are pending; as of the latest reporting no trial date had been announced and Herbert had not entered a plea in coverage of the unsealing. The posts that cost him his job are deleted, and his response to the firing itself remains on record through the Facebook statement.

Impact on Their Career/Life #

The Kirk posts ended Herbert’s only city-government salary — a $105,000 community-liaison post — and, with it, the relevance to City Hall he had cultivated as an Adams friend and ally. Four months later the federal indictment converted a reputational scandal into a legal one, accusing him of turning the very liaison role he was fired from — helping vendors and constituents navigate City Hall — into a private revenue stream, an allegation he must now answer in court. Whatever the trial’s outcome, the sequence has made his name a shorthand in New York political coverage for both the Kirk-posting firings of September 2025 and the broader federal reckoning with Adams-era City Hall.