Politics
Judge in Adams Corruption Case Upholds Bribery Charge Against the Mayor
Lawyers for Mayor Eric Adams of New York had asked for the bribery charge to be thrown out, but the judge was not persuaded.
The federal judge overseeing the corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday rejected an attempt by his lawyers to have a bribery charge against him thrown out.
In a 30-page order, Judge Dale E. Ho rebuffed arguments by Mr. Adams’s lawyers that the prosecution’s case fell short of meeting the federal definition of bribery, which prosecutors said had occurred when Mr. Adams accepted luxury travel from the Turkish government in exchange for pressuring Fire Department officials to sign off on the opening of a high-rise consulate building in Manhattan.
In arguing that the bribery count — one of five Mr. Adams faces — be dismissed, his lawyers had pointed to recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that raised the bar for prosecutors to bring corruption cases.
Judge Ho, in his decision, acknowledged that the application of the law had evolved, but found that the indictment was sufficient. He said that Mr. Adams’s lawyers had raised genuine questions about whether too much time had passed between the benefits Mr. Adams was accused of receiving and the actions he was accused of taking in return. But he said such questions should be resolved at trial — where the Supreme Court rulings could still pose a significant challenge for the government’s case.
The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York secured an indictment against Mr. Adams in late September, making him the first sitting mayor in the modern history of New York City to face criminal charges.
The pressuring of the Fire Department officials, who had delayed the opening of the Turkish consulate building over safety concerns, was a central focus of the charging document. Prosecutors said that when Mr. Adams reached out to the Fire Department in 2021, the officials believed they “would lose their jobs” if they did not approve the consulate’s opening. Mr. Adams had won the Democratic mayoral primary and was all but certain to become the next mayor, and he had appealed directly to the fire commissioner for the assistance, prosecutors said.