NYC Mayor Adams’ lawyer Alex Spiro slams federal corruption case as ‘egregious overreach’

Mayor Adams’ lead defense lawyer slammed prosecutors in a court filing Monday, saying the feds have themselves interfered with the mayor’s federal case by leaking information to the press — and claimed the feds don’t have the evidence to bring a superseding indictment.

Alex Spiro, the lawyer, wrote that the prosecutors have “peddled wide-ranging and false accusations” about Adams that have little backing even after going through over two dozen witness statements and millions of pages of discovery materials.

“The government’s ‘evidence’ thus reveals what defense counsel knew all along: this case
is an egregious overreach by prosecutors with no interest in a search for the truth,” Spiro wrote in the letter.

Spiro’s filing follows a letter filed last week by prosecutors that accused Adams’ legal team of unfairly trying to skew public opinion with statements in the press — including the mayor’s claim that the case was political retribution for the mayor’s criticism of President Biden over the migrant crisis.

That claim, prosecutors wrote in the Thursday letter, is untrue because the investigation began in 2021 — before Adams was elected mayor and around a year before Adams started being outspoken about the migrant crisis. Spiro’s response did not address this contention. He declined to comment.

In hios motion, Spiro said the discovery records — which include data and communications from over 50 cellphones and other devices, plus statements from 25 witnesses — show Adams had no knowledge of any criminal wrongdoing.

“That is why the government has tellingly not superseded its indictment despite indicating months ago at the first conference it was ‘quite likely’ and ‘moving quickly’ to do so — the incriminating evidence the government hoped to obtain does not exist,” Spiro wrote.

Prosecutors for the case have said the investigation is ongoing and that they could hit the mayor with more charges.

A range of current and former members of the Adams administration are facing multiple federal and state corruption probes. His former second-in-command, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, was indicted last week,  and several other members of the administration, nearly all of whom have since left the administration, have also been ensared in investigations.

Adams is charged with bribery, fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and receive illegal foreign campaign contributions and soliciting illegal foreign campaign contributions. He has denied all the charges. Adams’ team attempted to get the bribery court dismissed, but Judge Dale Ho rejected that attempt earlier this month.

The judge also tossed out previous claims about leaks to the media, referring to reporting by the New York Times on the development of the investigation. Ho ruled that Adams’ arguments lacked clear evidence showing the stories were illegally leaked.