stop representing the former mayor<\/a>, arguing the agency had determined Adams was not acting within the scope of his job as a city employee during the alleged incident. New York law requires the city to provide legal representation when its employees are accused of wrongdoing in their capacity as government employees, as long as they weren\u2019t breaking any agency rules or regulations at the time.<\/p>\nCity attorney Maxwell Leighton told a judge in court Wednesday that the agency made an initial decision to represent Adams early on in the case, based on limited facts. Since then, he said, more information has come to light that makes Adams ineligible for city representation.<\/p>\n
Leighton said the law department\u2019s request to pull out of the case is due in part to a lack of records related to the case. He said the agency has struggled to find many relevant documents because the allegations are decades old.<\/p>\n
For instance, Adams\u2019 personnel files from his days at the transit bureau were destroyed when Hurricane Sandy flooded a warehouse, Leighton said. The attorney also cited statements Beach-Mathura made in a confidential deposition, which he said also helped the law department determine the allegations weren\u2019t related to actions within the scope of Adams\u2019 job as a transit officer.<\/p>\n
Leighton said this decision was not based on the strength of Beach-Mathura\u2019s case. Rather, he said, it was based on the law department\u2019s determination that there was no legal connection between Beach-Mathura\u2019s case and Adams\u2019 employment as a transit officer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no reason for the taxpayers to pay for the defense in this case,\u201d Leighton said.<\/p>\n
The city attorney also denied that the decision was made for political reasons. He said Steven Banks, the city corporation counsel appointed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has been reviewing a wide swath of the legal department\u2019s cases to determine whether city attorneys should still be involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis evaluation was independent of any and all politics,\u201d Leighton said.<\/p>\n
But Adams’ private attorneys said he believed political motivations were driving the law department\u2019s decision to pull out of the case, not legal ones.<\/p>\n
Attorney Alan Futerfas argued in court that it would be wrong \u2014 and against past decisions in higher court \u2014 for the city to stop representing Adams after doing so for years. He said the law department can\u2019t change its mind about whom it\u2019s going to represent any time a new person comes into office.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city\u2019s going to make a decision in the first instance. That decision\u2019s going to stick,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Futerfas also argued the law department has created a conflict in the way it asked to stop representing Adams. He said city lawyers have created a perception that they believe Beach-Mathura\u2019s version of events because they cited her deposition in their request to be removed from the case.<\/p>\n
Futerfas is asking a judge to order the city to pay for a private attorney to represent Adams in the case.<\/p>\n
Justice Brendan Lantry said he will make a decision as soon as possible, but cautioned it could take some time because the arguments fall within a \u201cunique area of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Mayor Eric Adams wants taxpayers to pay his legal fees for a lawsuit accusing him of sexually…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-206368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-ny","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-nyc-headlines","12":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}