Lawyers for Mayor Eric Adams accused federal prosecutors of leaking information about the investigation that led to the mayor’s indictment last week, and asked the judge presiding over the case to hold a hearing and issue sanctions, according to a Tuesday morning court filing.
In the filing, one of Mr. Adams’s lawyers, Alex Spiro, refers to several articles in The New York Times that, over the past year, have reported on the scope and progress of the investigation. The reports, Mr. Adams’s lawyers argue in the filing, prejudiced the public against the mayor.
“By the time that charges against Mayor Adams were unsealed on September 26, 2024, most of the details of the indictment and the evidence underpinning the government’s case (weak as it is) had already been widely reported in the national and local press,” the filing says.
The filing on Tuesday came five days after federal prosecutors announced the indictment against Mr. Adams and one day after his lawyers asked the court to dismiss a bribery charge against him. And it was the start of what is likely to be a long legal battle, in which a sitting mayor of New York City has been charged with crimes for the first time in modern history.
In the face of calls for his resignation by other New York politicians, Mr. Adams has been fighting for his political life — visiting churches over the weekend and holding news conferences to shore up support. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove the mayor, has not moved to do so.
The identities of the private citizens who serve on grand juries are sealed, and they, prosecutors and other court officials are legally prohibited from disclosing deliberations like those that led to the mayor’s indictment last week. The rules cover only information presented to grand jurors while they are empaneled.
The news stories at the heart of Tuesday’s filing had made the contours of the inquiry apparent before the indictment.
The Times reported over the course of the past year that Mr. Adams’s phone had been seized; that the F.B.I. was investigating whether Mr. Adams had cleared red tape for the Turkish government in exchange for airline upgrades and other perks; and that Mr. Adams’s dealings with other countries were also being examined. These and several other articles cited in the court filing were based on the accounts of people with knowledge of the matters who spoke to The Times on the condition that their names not be published.
“Most egregiously, on September 25 — before the indictment was unsealed and even before the mayor’s counsel was notified of the indictment — the New York Times reported that the mayor ‘has been indicted in a federal corruption investigation, people with knowledge of the matter said,’” Mr. Spiro wrote in a letter to Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, whose office is prosecuting the case.
The five-count indictment against Mr. Adams was unsealed the day after the article was published.
Requests for leak investigations are seldom granted. But in Tuesday’s filing, Mr. Adams’s lawyers argued that only three groups of people could have known that the mayor had been indicted before the charges were publicly unsealed: the prosecutors, the grand jurors and the court staff members who processed the indictment.
Of the three groups, “only the prosecution team would have been privy to the government’s plan to announce additional details the next day,” he said.
The government has “shown an appalling disregard for Mayor Adams’s rights and the grand jury secrecy provisions,” Mr. Spiro wrote.
Officials at the Southern District did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Manhattan prosecutors charged Mr. Adams with bribery conspiracy, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations from the Turkish government. Prosecutors said that for years Mr. Adams accepted luxury travel and benefits worth more than $100,000, as well as illegal campaign contributions.
In exchange for the gifts, prosecutors said Mr. Adams granted favors to Turkey using his political position, including pressuring Fire Department officials to approve a new high-rise Turkish Consulate building in Midtown Manhattan while he was mayor-elect.
Mr. Adams has vehemently denied the allegations and has said he will not resign. He pleaded not guilty to all five charges in federal court on Friday.
In a news conference on Monday, Mr. Spiro said the charges “were not a real case.” He argued that the indictment had criminalized activities that were routine for politicians.
“New Yorkers will see through this,” he said.
Mr. Adams is scheduled to be in court on Wednesday for his first hearing before the federal judge who has been assigned to the case, Dale E. Ho.
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