NYC drops ex-Mayor Adams’ legal defense

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration wants to stop representing Eric Adams in a lawsuit that alleges the former mayor sexually assaulted a woman more than three decades ago, according to a court filing on Tuesday.

The move comes just a few months after Mamdani took office, following a bitter campaign season last year that had the two Democrats taking turns bashing each other in often caustic and personal terms.

The suit, filed while Adams was still in office, accuses the former mayor of sexually assaulting a woman, Lorna Beach-Mathura, in 1993 when he was a police officer, alleging that he demanded a sexual favor in exchange for his help in advancing her career in the police department. Adams has vehemently denied the allegation and said he does not remember meeting her.

The Associated Press does not typically identify alleged victims of sexual assault in stories unless they consent to being named, as Beach-Mathura has done through her attorney.

In a statement, Todd Shapiro, a spokesperson for Adams, said the former mayor “remains confident that the facts will ultimately prevail.”

The motion from the city’s corporation counsel to withdraw from the civil case argues that Adams is not entitled to city-funded legal support because he was “not acting within the scope of his City employment” at the time of the alleged assault.

A spokesperson for Mamdani said Tuesday that the move was “made independently by the Corporation Counsel, as is required by law” and that the mayor “did not direct the Corporation Counsel to undertake this review, nor did he instruct the Corporation Counsel to reach a particular determination.”

“Of course, Mayor Mamdani has full faith and confidence in the Corporation Counsel’s independent judgment and in his ability to reach the appropriate and just legal conclusions,” said the spokesperson, Dora Pekec.

Nevertheless, there has been no love lost between Mamdani and Adams.

Adams - who bowed out of last year’s Democratic primary following a federal corruption case that was ultimately dismissed after an extraordinary intervention from the Trump administration - ran for reelection as an independent, casting Mamdani as an out-of-touch liberal child of privilege.

Mamdani, meanwhile, sought to frame Adams as a corrupt leader whose warm relationship with the Trump administration compromised his ability to serve the city.

Adams eventually withdrew from the race altogether, endorsing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s candidacy, but he amped up his attacks against Mamdani in a bid to halt the young progressive’s political rise. At one point, Adams appeared to suggest without explanation that a terror attack could become more likely in the city if Mamdani was elected.

“New York can’t be Europe, folks,” Adams said at a campaign event where he endorsed Cuomo. “I don’t know what is wrong with people. You see what’s playing out in other countries because of Islamic extremism,” he continued, citing examples of recent terror attacks in Europe and Africa.

Mamdani went on to soundly defeat Cuomo in the city’s mayoral election in November, becoming the city’s first Muslim mayor and its youngest leader in generations. In the months since, Adams has continued to jab at his successor in social media posts.

In addition to the request to withdraw from Adams’ case, the city’s law department recently said it will no longer pay for legal representation for two close allies of Adams in separate matters.

The case against Adams was brought under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law that extended the time limit to bring sexual assault lawsuits. The woman first entered a claim in November 2023, just before the law’s expiration, and months later filed a detailed lawsuit against Adams.

At the time of the filings, the city’s corporation counsel described the allegations as “ludicrous” and said it expected “full vindication in court.”