NYC Mayor Adams Moves Quickly to Dismiss US Bribery Charge (2)

New York City Mayor Eric Adams moved quickly to build his defense against federal corruption charges, asking a judge Monday to throw out a bribery charge that doesn’t “amount to a federal crime at all.”

Prosecutors claimed in an indictment unsealed Thursday that Adams began accepting improper benefits, including luxury travel from wealthy Turkish businesspeople when he was Brooklyn Borough President. He’s also accused of secretly accepting illegal contributions to his 2021 mayoral campaign.

Adams’ lawyer, Alex Spiro, took the unusual step of filing a motion to dismiss part of the case quickly, instead of taking weeks, or even months. At a press conference Monday, Spiro said would seek to dismiss the rest of the charges later this week.

“Courtesies to politicians are not federal crimes,” he said. “Congressmen get upgrades. They get corner suites, they get better tables in restaurants. They get free appetizers. They have their iced tea filled up.”

Adams, the first mayor of the city to face federal charges while in office, pleaded not guilty on Friday to all of the charges. A spokesman for Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams had no comment on the motion.

Getting charges dismissed at this early stage requires convincing the judge that even if the government’s allegations are true, they don’t add up to a crime. Spiro said in the court filing that the other four counts against Adams, which relate to straw campaign donations from foreigners, are “evidently attributable to a self-interested staffer with an axe to grind.” Charges based on witness testimony are usually not thrown out at the very start of a case.

In a filing in federal court in Manhattan, Spiro argued that the bribery charge in the indictment is fatally flawed and that it does not claim that Adams agreed to help Turkey open its new consulate in NYC at the time he allegedly accepted travel and other perks.

“The zealous prosecutors who secured the indictment would have alleged that kind of specific agreement if they had any evidence,” he wrote. “But they do not.”

Alex Spiro and Eric Adams speak to the media following a court appearance in New York, on Sept. 27.

Photographer: Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images

Spiro clarified that Adams was not mayor at the time of the purported payments and argued that those perks do not qualify as bribes under federal law. And when asked by a reporter why Adams never listed the travel perks at the heart of the US case on disclosure forms, Spiro said “personal travel is not required to be disclosed.”

Adams and Spiro are relying on a series of US Supreme Court rulings over the past decade that have made it more difficult for prosecutors to pursue corruption charges. In a landmark 2016 case, the court overturned the conviction of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, who was found to have used his office to market dietary supplements in exchange for cash, vacations and shopping sprees.

SCOTUS Ruling

The high court ruled that the bribery statute was limited to “a very narrow set of actions” of elected officials, but that didn’t include using their influence to get other officials to do something. Spiro is arguing that the McDonnell ruling by the high court applies to Adams as well.

McDonnell and Adams were charged under different federal bribery statutes. Several courts, including the federal appeals court with authority over New York, have ruled that the Supreme Court’s McDonnell ruling doesn’t apply to charges filed under Sec. 666, which is what Adams is charged with. The law makes it illegal for state and local officials to demand or accept bribes “intending to be influenced or rewarded” in connection with government business.

Spiro pointed to a part of the indictment that alleged that Adams exerted pressure about the Turkish consulate building permit by sending “three short messages” to the NYC fire department commissioner. Those messages failed to show that he agreed to any benefits, Spiro said.

“The three innocuous messages that Adams allegedly sent to the FDNY Commissioner fall far short of the kind of ‘official act’ necessary for bribery,” Spiro said in the court filing.

The charges have spurred calls from numerous politicians, including political rivals, for him to resign. Adams has vowed to defend against the charges and continue as mayor.

The case is US v. Adams, 24-cr-566, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

(Adds standard for dismissing criminal charges in sixth paragraph.)

To contact the reporters on this story:
Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net;
Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at pathurtado@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net

Anthony Aarons

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