Discovery within the civil sexual assault go well with in opposition to Mayor Adams has hit a snag as his attorneys say they’ll’t produce his NYPD employment data as a result of they had been destroyed in Hurricane Sandy greater than a decade in the past.
Adams’ accuser, former metropolis Transit Police administrative aide Lorna Seaside-Mathura, has been looking for his NYPD personnel file as a part of her Manhattan Supreme Courtroom lawsuit in opposition to him, filed in March 2024. The data, she has argued, will substantiate that she and Adams labored on the similar police command in Brooklyn across the time she claims he sexually assaulted her in 1993, an accusation the mayor vehemently denies.
However late this spring, Adams’ Legislation Division attorneys despatched Seaside-Mathura’s authorized group a letter saying the mayor’s employment file was destroyed.
“With the exception of a personnel assignment record … all physical personnel records and employment folders maintained for Defendant Adams were destroyed when the Kingsland Avenue warehouse suffered extensive damage from flooding during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012,” Maxwell Leighton, an assistant company counsel on the Legislation Division, wrote within the Could 15 letter, which was made public on the courtroom docket Thursday.
Hurricane Sandy destruction
Joe Marino For New York Each day Information
Surging waters from Hurricane Sandy attain New York on Oct. 29, 2012. (Joe Marino for New York Each day Information)
However Megan Goddard, Seaside-Mathura’s legal professional, stated she discovered it odd Adams’ attorneys are solely now offering this rationalization.
“This alleged loss was never mentioned in any prior response, letter, or conversation, not even when we specifically raised the issue in our original discovery requests or our deficiency letter,” Goddard continued. “Eric Adams became mayor nearly four years ago, and we have to ask: when did the City actually learn that these records were allegedly destroyed?”
A Legislation Division spokesman stated the company wasn’t knowledgeable by the NYPD till this previous Could that the mayor’s data had been destroyed in 2012.
Issues at NYPD storage services had been raised in a lawsuit filed this week by Tom Donlon, Adams’ former interim NYPD commissioner, who alleged the division’s record-keeping practices at its warehouses have been extraordinarily sloppy.
In a letter additionally launched on the courtroom docket Thursday, Seaside-Mathura complained that Adams and the NYPD have engaged in “willful obstruction” of discovery in her consumer’s case, producing practically no data in response to repeated requests. Seaside-Mathura requested the courtroom to schedule a discovery convention to deal with the matter.
In her go well with, Seaside-Mathura, who’s looking for no less than $5 million in damages, alleges Adams tried to pressure her to carry out oral intercourse on him in his automotive after he picked her up on the finish of a shift to speak a few office challenge. When she refused, she alleges Adams masturbated and ejaculated on her leg earlier than dropping her off at a subway cease.
Adams has strongly denied the accusations, saying he can’t recall ever even assembly Seaside-Mathura.
With Graham Rayman
Initially Printed: July 17, 2025 at 2:18 PM EDT
