Credit...Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times
Eric Adams To Stand Trial On Corruption Charges in April, Judge Says
Accused of conspiring to funnel illegal contributions from Turkey into his campaign coffers, Mr. Adams has pleaded not guilty.
by https://www.nytimes.com/by/jan-ransom · NY TimesMayor Eric Adams of New York City is scheduled to stand trial on corruption charges on April 21, a federal judge said at a hearing on Friday.
During the same appearance, in Federal District Court in Manhattan, the judge, Dale E. Ho, responded to a request by Mr. Adams to throw out a bribery charge against him by saying he would rule on the matter at a later date.
Prosecutors also reiterated plans, first previewed at a hearing last month, to bring more charges against Mr. Adams and others in what they described as a wide-ranging corruption scheme involving the mayor, his campaign fund-raising and Turkish government officials who sought to influence him. They added that any additional charges would not interfere with the trial date set by the judge.
Here Are the Charges Eric Adams Faces, Annotated
The Times annotated the indictment.
Judge Ho’s decision on Friday essentially split the difference between the timeline sought by the prosecutors and the one requested by Mr. Adams’s lawyers, who argued that the mayor needed to go to trial as soon as possible ahead of next year’s Democratic mayoral primary. That race was already shaping up to be hotly contested, with several serious challengers pointing to Mr. Adams’s legal problems as grounds for throwing him out of office.
One of Mr. Adams’s lawyers, Alex Spiro, urged the judge on Friday to keep in mind that his client was no ordinary defendant.
“In this city, with an election happening, the court should take into account that he is not just sitting here presumed innocent anymore,” Mr. Spiro said. “It doesn’t give him a realistic chance. If he still has this hanging over his head, that impacts the election, period.”
Mr. Adams, who pleaded not guilty and has strenuously denied any wrongdoing, has resisted calls to resign, including from prominent fellow Democrats who expressed concern after Mr. Adams became the first sitting mayor in modern New York City history to face criminal charges. The five-count indictment against him was unsealed in late September by prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.
Despite Mr. Adams’s vows to fight the accusations, he has already burned through nearly all of the roughly $1.8 million he had raised to pay for his legal expenses, spurring questions about how he will cover costs going forward — especially if the government adds more charges against him.
In their indictment of Mr. Adams in September, prosecutors said that he had spent years seeking and accepting free or heavily discounted luxury travel from Turkish officials before receiving a request, through an aide, to help with a problem the Turkish government was having with a city agency.
At the time, in summer 2021, Mr. Adams was Brooklyn borough president, but he had recently won the Democratic mayoral primary and was all but certain to become the city’s next mayor.
After a Turkish official asked Mr. Adams’s aide to remind the mayor of “the support Turkey had offered” and that it was now “his turn,” Mr. Adams responded, “I know,” the prosecutors said.
Mr. Adams then pressured the Fire Department to sign off on the opening of the Turkish government’s new high-rise consulate building in Manhattan despite safety concerns, the prosecutors said.
Aside from the corruption inquiry into Mr. Adams, at least four other criminal investigations have swirled around members of his inner circle, prompting a series of resignations by some of the mayor’s most trusted aides and plunging City Hall into crisis.
The storm of legal problems has also raised doubts in the minds of New York voters: A majority of them believe Mr. Adams broke the law and should resign, according to a survey from The New York Times and Siena College, raising questions about the viability of his political career.
On Friday, Mr. Adams sat at a table between his lawyers throughout the two-hour court hearing, during which federal prosecutors and lawyers for Mr. Adams spent much of their time presenting arguments around the bribery charge.
Lawyers for Mr. Adams had argued that the prosecution’s case fell short of meeting the federal definition of bribery. They pointed to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that raised the bar for prosecutors to bring corruption cases — one which legal experts who separately reviewed the indictment against Mr. Adams said could pose a challenge for prosecutors.
The prosecutors have said that the charge is warranted because Mr. Adams accepted luxury travel from Turkish officials in exchange for pressuring the Fire Department to sign off on the consulate building.
Hagan Cordell Scotten, the lead prosecutor on the case, said on Friday that Judge Ho need not throw out the bribery charge because the concerns raised by Mr. Adams’s lawyers could be addressed in jury instructions.
He discounted the argument that, because Mr. Adams was not yet mayor when he reached out to the fire commissioner about the consulate building, the act could not be described as bribery. Mr. Scotten noted that the outreach occurred after Mr. Adams had won the Democratic mayoral primary.
“Andrew Yang in the Democratic primary couldn’t call the fire commissioner,” Mr. Scotten said, referring to one of Mr. Adams’s opponents in the primary and suggesting that Mr. Adams was indeed in a position to exert significant political pressure.
“Pressure,” Mr. Scotten said, “is one of the many ways to satisfy an official act.”
But a lawyer for Mr. Adams, John F. Bash, said on Friday that the alleged benefit Mr. Adams provided did not fit the legal definition of bribery, and that prosecutors were being too broad in their characterization of Mr. Adams’s actions as a quid pro quo.
“I just don’t see how you can say the operation or regulation of that building is a specific activity in that sense,” Mr. Bash said.
Even if the bribery charge is ultimately dismissed, Mr. Adams will still face charges of fraud; conspiracy to commit fraud and receive illegal foreign campaign contributions; and two counts of soliciting illegal foreign campaign contributions.
Prosecutors also revealed on Friday that they still have not gained access to Mr. Adams’s phone and some devices belonging to others in his orbit, but that they had amassed 1.6 terabytes of evidence, including 400,000 pages of records from city hall.
Mr. Adams has told federal authorities that he changed the passcode to his phone before it was seized in November 2023 but could not recall the correct number combination to unlock it, the prosecutors said.
Separately, in a decision issued late Thursday, Judge Ho rejected Mr. Adams’s request for a hearing after his lawyers accused the government of leaking information about the investigation to news organizations, including The New York Times. The lawyers also urged that prosecutors be sanctioned.
The judge ruled that Mr. Adams had failed to show evidence supporting those claims or make a persuasive case that the government had improperly provided information to reporters. Judge Ho also said that the lawyers in the U. S. attorney’s office were not the only ones with access to information about subpoenas that had been issued.
Still, Judge Ho issued a warning to both sides.
“The parties are cautioned that this case is to be tried in the courtroom,” he wrote, “and not in the press.”