Feds Charge Exodus Founder and Adams Fundraiser With COVID Hotel Corruption Scheme
A taxpayer-funded program to house incarcerated people released from Rikers in hotels during the COVID-19 pandemic became an elaborate fraud conspiracy in which the founder and former CEO of Exodus Transitional Community, Julio Medina, pocketed millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks, Brooklyn federal prosecutors charged Thursday.
Medina, Christopher Dantzler, the owner of an unlicensed security firm Exodus hired to provide security at the hotels, and Weihong Hu, owner of two hotels where Exodus placed the inmates when they were released from Rikers and upstate prisons, were charged with a wide variety of federal felonies.
Hu has raised thousands of campaign dollars for both former Mayor Bill de Blasio and his successor, Eric Adams. The Exodus inmate hotel program was awarded via a no-bid contract in an emergency housing program under de Blasio at the start of the pandemic and expanded by Adams, with more than $120 million in public funds steered to Exodus.
“Through kickbacks and bribes, the defendants…capitalized on the COVID-19 crisis and exploited the Emergency Housing Program by engaging in a corrupt scheme to line their own pockets with millions of dollars intended to protect the public,” a 17-page indictment unsealed Thursday by Brooklyn U.S. Attorney John Durham alleged.
https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/02/13/julio-medina-exodus-weihong-hu-dantzler/