Mayor Eric Adams and his legal team are fighting to have some parts of the federal case against him to be dismissed.
According to reports, Adams’ lawyers are arguing the that prosecution’s “allegations are vague and that it doesn’t rise to the level of a federal crime.” On Friday, Eric Adams pled guilty to multiple charges including accepting illegal campaign contributions from a Turkish official.
In the motion that was filed on Monday, his attorneys said that the bribery charge is “meritless, arguing that zealous prosecutors had failed to show an explicit quid pro quo between Adams and Turkish officials.” However, they claim that he was helping an “important foreign nation cut through the city’s red tape.”
The indictment states that Mayor Adams sent multiple messages to the fire commissioner in September 2021 asking him to hurry the opening of the 36-story Manhattan consulate building, but fire safety inspectors said it wasn’t safe to open ahead of the visit from Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The messages allegedly came after Mayor Adams had received and accepted flight upgrades and luxury hotel stays worth thousands of dollars, according to the prosecutors. These messages occurred during the time Eric Adams was Brooklyn Borough President but had won the mayoral primary election.
His defense attorneys wrote, “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.” They continued adding that the indictment, “does not allege that Mayor Adams agreed to perform any official act at the time that he received a benefit.”
Although he is currently fighting these charges, he has revealed that he will continue to serve as mayor. He is set to return to court on Wednesday for a conference.