Why Are Taxpayers Funding Eric Adams’ Defense in a Civil Sexual Assault Case?

The city’s law department revealed Monday that it is representing Mayor Eric Adams in a civil lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault, providing him with taxpayer-salaried lawyers to defend him in a civil case filed this week in Manhattan Supreme Court under the Adult Survivors Act.

On Tuesday, Corporation Counsel Sylvia Hinds-Radix said she was obligated to do so because the alleged 1993 incident took place while Adams was an employee of the NYPD transit bureau, emphasizing that the mayor was “not getting any special treatment.”

But the General Municipal Law requires the city only to represent employees accused of acts performed during the discharge of their official duties that did not violate the rules and regulations of the agencies they work for — giving the Corporation Counsel latitude to determine which employees the city chooses to represent in court.

In some cases, the city has declined to provide representation to employees — often city cops — under the latitude granted by the law. In 2021, for example, the city’s Law Department declined to represent an officer in a civil case accusing him of violating the free speech rights of a Black Lives Matter protester.

In the complaint against Adams, Lorna Beach-Mathura, a former civilian employee of the NYPD, alleges he sexually assaulted her when she sought his advice on an employment issue “in his capacity as a leader” of the Guardians Association, a fraternal organization of Black NYPD employees, “and in his capacity as a Police Officer.” 

The suit further alleges that Adams retaliated against her after the incident and that he “had influence” over the “terms and conditions” of her employment as an official within the Guardians, which is also a defendant in the case along with the NYPD.

At the time, Beach-Mathura says, Adams offered to pick her up after work to discuss the matter. When he showed up, she says, he was wearing a suit and tie and not in uniform but told her he was on duty. She says he agreed to drive her home to discuss her employment issues but instead drove to a secluded spot, tried to coerce her into performing oral sex on him in exchange for assisting her, then exposed himself and masturbated onto her.

On Tuesday Adams denied the allegations, stating, “It did not happen. I don’t recall meeting this person and that is not who I am as a person.” He then referred all questions about his legal representation to Hinds-Radix, a former judge he appointed as Corporation Counsel.

During the mayor’s once-a-week all-topic press conference Tuesday, Hinds-Radix sidestepped the question of whether the allegations in the lawsuit were “within the scope of his public employment” and “not in violation of any rule or regulation of his agency,” as the law spells out.

“The corporation counsel gets the, based on the law and the charter, the ability to evaluate and make the determinations, the same determinations we make with other cases. We get that question if a police officer is accused of having done something. And we represent from our office making those determinations and that’s the determination we’ve made.”

Beach-Mathura contends in the suit that Adams could have influenced her promotion request — a claim a spokesperson for the mayor this week called ”preposterous.”

Asked by THE CITY how the Law Department determined that the allegations described in the lawsuit qualify as occurring within the scope of Adams’ official duties, spokesperson Nick Paolucci responded, “The basis for all Law Department representation decisions is protected by attorney-client privilege.”

Joel Berger, an attorney who once made such determinations when he was a top lawyer in the Law Department under Mayor Ed Koch, called the Law Department’s decision to represent Adams “inappropriate” and questioned whether the facts described in the lawsuit fit the bill for Corporation Counsel representation.

“The appearance is extremely inappropriate,” said Berger. “He wasn’t being approached in his capacity as a police officer. There’s plenty of reasons to argue that he wasn’t acting within the scope of his employment.”

Berger said under Koch, the Corporation Counsel’s office acted as an independent lawyer for the people of the city — not the mayor, who has his own mayoral counsel.

“In those circumstances, in those days they would have declined to represent a mayor in this type of case. They would have persuaded the mayor not to ask for it,” he said. “Those days are over. Virtually every corp counsel since has behaved as the mayor’s lawyer even though the mayor has a counsel.”

Berger also said Adams should hire his own lawyer at his own expense and not rely on the city to pay for outside counsel.

Adams has, in fact, hired his own counsel in a pending federal investigation of his fundraising during the 2021 mayoral race, including whether his campaign received money from the Turkish government through illegal straw donations. He retained the firm of WilmerHale after the FBI seized his cell phone and raided the home of his campaign fundraiser Brianna Suggs last fall.

In that case, the mayor created a legal defense fund to raise contributions from supporters to pay his lawyers on a team that includes his former mayoral counsel, Brendan McGuire. In January Adams reported raising more than $730,000 via this fund.