Mayor Adams’ authorized staff on Monday requested the choose presiding over his public corruption case to set an earlier trial date so he can concentrate on getting reelected in 2025.
The case is ready to go on trial on April 21. Adams’ lawyer, Alex Spiro, in a letter to Manhattan federal court docket Decide Dale Ho, requested that it start weeks earlier on April 1.
“As it currently stands, the resolution of trial would only be one month before New York voters cast their ballots in the 2025 Democratic primary. Moreover, given the enormous early voting turnout in the recent election, it is likely that many New Yorkers will cast their ballots on the first days of early voting, which begins on June 14, 2025,” Spiro wrote.
“An earlier trial date will ensure that Mayor Adams’s speedy trial rights are upheld, that the Mayor will be able to fully participate in his reelection campaign and that this City’s voters can be rid of the distraction of this misguided indictment as they hear from and evaluate the Democratic candidates for Mayor on their merits.”
Adams, 64, has pleaded not responsible to conspiracy, bribery, wire fraud and secretly soliciting marketing campaign contributions from abroad donors in a five-count indictment handed up by a grand jury in September. The costs carry a possible decades-long sentence.
Amongst different allegations, the indictment accuses Adams — beginning when he was Brooklyn borough president — of accepting greater than $100,000 value of lavish journeys, cruises and lodge stays from a Turkish authorities official and Turkish businessmen who believed his rising political profession would see him in the future take the White Home.
Adams allegedly repaid the favors by pulling strings for his secret benefactors, like pressuring the FDNY to expedite the opening of the 36-floor Turkish Consulate in Manhattan regardless of critical fireplace security considerations.
Exterior of the lavish items, the mayor allegedly solicited and accepted tens of hundreds of {dollars} in unlawful straw donations from Turkish nationals — funneling the donations by U.S. residents to disguise their origins.
In response to the feds, the unlawful donations had been maximized by the town’s public matching funds program, contributing to the $10 million in public cash he obtained in his final marketing campaign. They are saying the illegally garnered contributions tainted the entire pot.
Prosecutors conducting a number of probes involving the mayor and his interior circle have mentioned that extra indictments will “quite likely” be introduced.
Adams denies the allegations and has pushed the court docket to dismiss the bribery depend, arguing the indictment fails to determine a “quid pro quo.”
Detailing the busy marketing campaign calendar Adams had when he final ran for mayor, Spiro’s Monday letter argued {that a} late Might verdict would permit prosecutors “to sideline Mayor Adams for the vast majority of his remaining reelection campaign, during many of the most important moments.”
“[The] Mayor is in the midst of a reelection campaign, and, as the Court has already noted, this prosecution will continue to cast a cloud over that campaign until it is resolved by a jury of New Yorkers,” Spiro wrote.
A spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. lawyer’s workplace declined to remark.
Initially Revealed: November 11, 2024 at 12:01 PM EST
