Good

The Mamdani administration, has moved to end the city's defense of Eric Adams against sexual assault allegations.

These allegations date back decades from Adams' term as mayor, and as such, the city should never have been involved in his defense. 

It's yet another example of Adams' corruption and cronyism.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s law department on Tuesday sought a judge’s approval to stop representing former Mayor Eric Adams in a sexual assault lawsuit brought against him in 2024.

In a filing in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, [Supreme Court in New York State is the trial court, the court of last appeal is the Court of Appeals] New York City’s corporation counsel argued that Mr. Adams should not be represented by the city because, contrary to the law department’s earlier determination, he was not acting within the scope of his city employment when the alleged assault occurred.

“Based on my review of new evidence since the original decision to represent him was made, I have determined that he is not entitled to representation by the City in this matter,” the corporation counsel, Steve Banks, said in a statement. “Accordingly, the Law Department has asked the court to permit our office to withdraw from representing the former Mayor.”

The lawsuit against Mr. Adams was filed in March 2024 by Lorna Beach-Mathura, a former employee of the transit bureau of the New York Police Department. She accused Mr. Adams of sexually assaulting her in 1993 when she went to him seeking career advice; at the time, he was a police officer and she also worked for the department.

This lawsuit has nothing to do with his official duties as mayor, and as such, the city should not be paying big bucks to defend him. 

………

Megan Goddard, the lawyer who brought the suit on behalf of Ms. Beach-Mathura, said her client had informed others of her experience with Mr. Adams before it was possible for her to sue him. It was only later, in 2022, that New York’s Adult Survivors Act opened a window for people to bring lawsuits over past sexual assaults, regardless of the statute of limitations.

Ms. Beach-Mathura noted on Tuesday that she had first spoken out about her experience during Mr. Adams’s first mayoral campaign.

“I came forward with the fact that Eric Adams sexually assaulted me in 1993 because I was highly disturbed by his portrayal of himself as ‘the law-and-order candidate,’” Ms. Beach-Mathura said in a statement provided by Ms. Goddard. 

………

The Mamdani administration’s decision to stop representing Mr. Adams comes just days after it announced similar actions regarding two other former city officials, both Adams allies.

They are Timothy Pearson, one of Mr. Adams’s closest aides and a defendant in at least four sexual harassment suits, and Jeffrey Maddrey, a former top police official accused of demanding sex from a subordinate in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime.

I really hope that they all end up both bankrupted and incarcerated as a result of this.