Eric Adams pleads not guilty; prosecutors suggest more charges coming
Prosecutors suggested that they might add further charges to those currently facing the embattled mayor of New York City, who made his second court appearance Wednesday, Oct. 2, after pleading not guilty to a five-count felony indictment the previous week.
Mayor Eric Adams became the first sitting NYC mayor to face a criminal trial when he was arraigned during a 20-minute appearance before a judge on the morning of September 27. Adams had arrived at the courthouse by 8:45 a.m in response to his summons. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 45 years in prison.
No date was set for his trial, although his attorney, Alex Spiro, asked to hold off until after an important election deadline.
The charges allege seeking and accepting improper gifts and donations from a foreign national—a Turkish official, to be specific. Adams allegedly cashed in on such favors just months before he took office by pressuring the fire department to facilitate the opening of a 36-story consulate building without an inspection—one the skyscraper would have allegedly failed.
Dressed in charcoal-gray suit and red tie, Adams spoke sparingly in court, mostly to acknowledge his rights to Magistrate Judge Katherine Parker and to plead not guilty. Spiro agreed to the prosecutors’ proposed conditional release, which stipulated not contacting witnesses. Spiro was aware of “one key witness” whom Adams should not contact. The prosecution will provide a list of the others.
Exceptions were made for Adams to communicate with family members and City Hall staff as long as they did not discuss the case. He now embarks on an unprecedented balancing act between a criminal trial and governing as New York City mayor.
Antonio Reynoso, who succeeded Adams as Brooklyn borough president, said he believes such an undertaking would hurt the city and called for Adams’s resignation.
“This is not about whether or not the mayor is innocent,” Reynoso said over the phone. “This is about whether he can run the city. And there is no way, with the severity of the charges that are being presented right now, that the mayor can solely focus on taking care of the City of New York.”
Attorney Olayemi Olurin, one of Adams’s harshest critics, pointed to the irony of the mayor now hoping to receive the same benefit of the doubt for criminally charged people he debated her over in their viral Breakfast Club debate earlier this year.
“It’s interesting to see a man spend the last few years going out of his way to increase the amount of police that are harassing Black and Brown New Yorkers,” Olurin said. “To increase the amount of New Yorkers [who] are stuck in Rikers pretrial, to completely dismiss and blow off not only people dying in Rikers pretrial but the actual [issues] like negligence and corruptions of corrections officers that played a role in those deaths…He was completely dismissive to all of it—absolutely everything—only for us to find out that that same man is involved in nothing but a litany of corruption.”
Reynoso, who also previously criticized Adams for increased policing, said the scope of his charges far surpass those he cracked down on. “What the mayor is being accused of doing is an example of something that would send this city into a place that no person stealing from bodega could take it,” he said.
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
The post Eric Adams pleads not guilty; prosecutors suggest more charges coming appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.