Eric Adams indictment: Live updates as NYC mayor is accused of taking bribes
Adams’ lawyer says the mayor wanted to turn himself in Thursday but is now hoping to appear in court Friday or Monday
Speaking to reporters, Alex Spiro suggested federal authorities waved off his immediate surrender. He also accused them of leaking word of Adams’ indictment to the news media.
“We’ve known for some time that they intended to bring a case against the mayor one way or another,” Spiro said, standing with Adams outside the mayor’s official residence.
Spiro said that after having had a chance to read the indictment, “you could almost picture them trying to cobble this together and try to tell a story so that they could say, ‘corruption, corruption’ at a press conference.”
He criticized the indictment as a jumble of accusations and innuendo he said was “meant to mislead” the public about Adams. He argued that the conduct described in the charges either wasn’t illegal or didn’t involve the mayor.
The Turkish consulate was asking for “a courtesy,” not payback, when it wanted Adams’ help in skipping a fire inspection, Spiro said, adding: “New Yorkers do this all the time.” Adams said he’d see what he could do and, a few days later, ignored a follow up phone call from the consulate, Spiro asserted.
“There is no corruption. This is not a real case,” Spiro said.
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