Why is NYC Paying to Defend Eric Adams in a Sexual Assault Lawsuit?
New York City Mayor Eric Adams addresses questions about the sexual assault case brought against him.
By Bob Hennelly
At the end of New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ weekly media availability on March 19, decorum went out the window as photographers swarmed him in the hunt for the image that might capture the essence of what had just gone down during the high stakes press conference.
They pursued him until he slipped through the “no entry double doors” to his inner sanctum where loyalty is likely.
Throughout Tuesday’s 65-minute Blue Room crucible, the Mayor did his best to maintain command and control as he addressed for the first time the bombshell charges against him contained in the recently-surfaced Lorna Beach-Mathura lawsuit.
That lawsuit alleges in graphic detail that he sexually assaulted a female co-worker at the Transit Police Bureau in 1993 after the woman had turned to him for help as part of his leadership role at the Guardians Association, the NYPD’s Black employee fraternal support group.
“This did not happen. It did not happen,” the mayor said looking directly into the TV cameras during his opening remarks. “I don't recall ever meeting this person. During my time in the Police Department back in '93, many of you know, those who have followed me, I was one of the most outspoken voices for fighting not only police abuse, but also for the rights of people. My life has been dedicated and committed to that.”
Notice of the lawsuit was filed back in November, after Albany enacted the Adult Survivors Act which opened a one-year-window for victims of sexual assault to sue civilly their alleged perpetrators irrespective of when the incident occurred.
Reporters, like blindfolded revelers at a pinata party, took turns quizzing the mayor, suggesting this latest news could become “a career‑ending incident” — and that with the ongoing FBI campaign finance probe and straw donor guilty pleas — there were “clouds growing over City Hall.” Adams was also asked about the “difficulty doing your job vis‑à‑vis the public.”
There were temptations offered for Adams to do a deflection à la Donald Trump, dismissing the lawsuit as the work of nefarious hidden detractors looking to spark “a political witch hunt.” Perhaps, old foes looking to settle scores….?
Another reporter offered a chance for Adams to cast aspersions on the plaintiff herself as just “someone who has a history of filing lawsuits, advising people how to file lawsuits….do you want New Yorkers to take away that you think this is just a fabricated, frivolous, made‑up case? Or, have you wondered whether there could be something more coordinated like a political hit behind this?”
Mayor Adams, with the help of his legal counsel didn’t take the bait.
At one point, Adams tried to elude the media entirely by speaking directly to his constituents. “And I want to say to New Yorkers, I'm going to continue to do my job of navigating the city out of the crisis that we have been in, just as we navigated out of Covid, the asylum seeker crisis, public safety, housing crisis. I'm focused on doing that. I've given three comments over and over again: stay focused, no distractions, and grind — and the legal team will handle the other aspects of this.”
It was indeed the decision by New York City Corporation Counsel Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix, a well-respected former Associate Justice of the New York State Appellate Division, to represent Adams in this sexual assault civil lawsuit that sparked the most pointed questioning from reporters, including from Work-Bites that posed a hypothetical. Would any NYPD officer hit with this kind of legal action be represented by the City of New York’s top attorney? Does Corporation Counsel represent the Office of the Mayor, or Eric Adams, the occupant of the office?
“The mayor is entitled to representation as a former employee of the Transit Authority, under the State Public Officers Law. And the Transit Authority Police Department, as you are aware, merged, there was a merger in 1995; and after that merger, there was an agreement that the city and the corporation counsel became obligated to represent former Transit Authority employees,” Hinds-Radix replied. “The mayor, therefore, is not getting any special treatment. He is being treated the way he's entitled to and that's why there is representation here.”
Over the years, the City of New York has defended thousands of New York City police officers in federal and state tort claim actions paying out over $1 billion during the 12 years of Mayor Bloomberg’s tenure alone.
Norman Seigel, noted civil liberties lawyer and police accountability expert, told Work-Bites that while the city does most often defend rank and file police officers from civil lawsuits, indemnification is not universally extended — especially if the alleged conduct is so egregious it crosses the line into potential criminality. These determinations are further complicated by the fact that, while Albany has opened the window to civil actions with no time horizon, the state’s criminal statute of limitations remains in place.
“The Corporation Counsel should be describing the criteria they are basing this determination on since you and I know they don’t represent every city employee that gets sued — that’s the ultimate question,” Seigel said. “If they represented every city employee 100 percent of the time there would be no issue.”
Seigel, who described himself as a longtime “friend” of Adams, has also legally represented the former police captain.
Richard Briffault, a Columbia Law School professor, and former chair of the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board, told the New York Times the arrangement was “inappropriate in this case because it has nothing to do with anything involving his office. The events that were alleged were decades ago, as I understand it. And there’s no allegation of misuse of office in any of this. It’s entirely about a private matter, and that’s the sort of thing that should be handled by private counsel.”
At City Council Speaker Adrienne’s press conference that followed the mayor’s weekly press availability, she was asked by Work-Bites for her views on the city defending Mayor Adams in the Lorna Beach-Mathura lawsuit.
“I watched that press conference and you guys really exhausted that question,” Speaker Adams said, adding that Judge Radix had repeatedly answered variations of that same question satisfactorily. “I am going to stand by what Corporation Counsel said in her response,” she said.
The Lorna Beach-Mathura lawsuit cites as defendants Eric Adams, the Transit Bureau of the NYPD, the New York City Police Department’s Guardian Angels, and several “unknown entities” who over the course of the litigation the plaintiff expects to identify. The complaint alleges she was subjected to sexual assault, battery” as well as an “astonishing abuse of power” by Adams.
In her 26-page lawsuit, Lorna Beach-Mathura alleges in 1993 as a Black “divorced mother of young children” in a Police Transit Bureau clerical civil service, she turned to Adams, who in his leadership role at the Guardians could help her address being passed over for a promotion, she asserts was wrongfully denied her in reprisal for being vocal about on-the-job race and gender discrimination.
It reads like a 1980s time capsule of a city much closer to the red hot societal upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s when Black officers made up just a little over 10 percent of the force, and under eight percent were female, a world away from the current 21st century demographics of a force that now consists mostly of people of color, and well over 20 percent female.
According to the lawsuit’s timeline, Beach-Mathura had passed the NYPD’s administrative aid exam in 1980, fifteen years before the Transit Bureau of the NYPD was formally merged with the NYPD. Over the arc of the next decade-plus years, the plaintiff describes passing tests in higher titles, but either being denied promotions, or given inferior assignments because she was outspoken about the disparate treatment she was subjected to.
The “plaintiff complained about white employees smoking at work when she was pregnant,” according to the complaint and was also regularly subjected to a “sexually hostile work environment.” When Beach-Mathura did get a promotion in title after a successful test, she was given a new assignment to a remote location an hour away from where she lived, despite there being a spot open within walking distance of her home in Brooklyn. This, the plaintiff asserts, was a consequence of her being vocal about the plight of women of color within the Transit Bureau of the NYPD, issues that Adams was also raising at the time.
In Beach-Mathura’s complaint, she further describes being recruited by the Guardians who actively worked to help promote both civilian and uniformed Black employees at the NYPD. According to the lawsuit, Adams offered to pick the plaintiff up at work and drive her home to Coney Island when he detoured to an empty lot on the Hudson River so he could “concentrate” on Beach-Mathura’s workplace issues.
Once parked, according to the complaint, Adams suggested a quid pro quo, he would intercede on her behalf but she would have to give him “a blow job,” which she refused despite Adams “repeatedly cajoling, demanding, and begging plaintiff for oral sex, defendant Adams unzipped his pants and pulled out his erect penis.”
“After she repeatedly and adamantly refused Defendant Adams’ demand for sexual favors, he assaulted Plaintiff by grabbing her hand and placing it on his exposed, erect penis. He then told her to ‘Give [him] a hand job,’” the complaint alleges, adding that after Beach-Mathura removed her hand he “masturbated himself to completion and ejaculated on her.”
The complaint continues, “Defendant Adams bluntly told Plaintiff he would drop her off at the ‘nearest subway,’ which happened to be the Chambers Street Subway Station, which defendant Adams and plaintiff both knew did not go to Coney Island, where he had been supposed to drive her. However, plaintiff had no power to object to where he dropped her and just wanted to get away from him.”