Mayor Adams asks court to dismiss bribery charge, says favors for Turkish government were legal – gothamist.com
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Less than a week into his federal corruption case, lawyers for Mayor Eric Adams filed a motion Monday to dismiss a charge that Adams accepted bribes from Turkish officials, citing a three-month-old Supreme Court decision that weakened federal enforcement of bribery.
Attorney Alex Spiro’s motion attempts to undermine federal prosecutors’ argument that Adams accepted luxury travel in exchange for pressuring FDNY officials to allow a new Turkish consulate to open even while the 36-story skyscraper was riddled with dozens of safety defects.
“That extraordinarily vague allegation encompasses a wide array of normal and perfectly lawful acts that many city officials would undertake for the consulate of an important foreign nation, such as arranging meetings with regulators, offering advice about how to navigate the city’s bureaucracy, and referring diplomatic personnel to attorneys who specialize in regulatory affairs or building-code disputes,” Spiro wrote.
The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York indicted Adams Thursday on federal charges including bribery, wire fraud and conspiracy. The indictment capped one of at least five investigations swirling around the mayor and members of his inner circle over the last year and a half.
In another possible probe, the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — which first indicted Adams fundraisers in July 2023 — seized yet another Adams official’s phone Friday, the same day federal law enforcement served her a subpoena.
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