Celebrity lawyer Alex Spiro withdraws from Adams’ sexual assault suit as he reps mayor in historic federal corruption case
Celebrity attorney Alex Spiro won’t defend Eric Adams in a lawsuit accusing him of a decades-old sexual assault — because he’s also repping the embattled mayor against recent federal corruption charges.
Spiro — a regular defender of the rich and famous whose clients have included Elon Musk and Jay-Z — said in a Wednesday court filing that his law firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, will withdraw from the civil suit after the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board raised concerns about him counseling the mayor in both cases.
“The [board] raised concerns that Quinn Emanuel’s representation of Defendant Adams in both the criminal matter pending in the Southern District of New York and the present matter presents a conflict of interest and informed Quinn Emanuel of the same,” the Manhattan Supreme Court filing said.
“Consequently, there exists, at minimum, the appearance of a potential conflict of interest in Quinn Emanuel continuing to represent Defendant Adams in both matters.”
The court is expected to approve Spiro’s request, which is mostly a formality.
Spiro’s decision means some other attorney will have to defend Adams, the city and the NYPD’s Transit Bureau in the litigation — which stem from claims that Hizzoner sexually assaulted Lorna Beach-Mathura back when the two worked for the Transit Bureau decades ago.
Beach-Mathura claims Adams pressured her for oral sex in exchange for helping her get a promotion, according to her lawsuit.
But when she rejected his advances, Adams allegedly forced her to touch him and ejaculated on her while they were in a police cruiser in 1993, the suit states.
Adams denies the incident ever happened.
“I don’t recall ever meeting this person during my time in the police department,” he said shortly after the suit was made public.
Spiro has also defended Adams — who last week became the first sitting New York City mayor to be criminally indicted — in the Manhattan federal case against him.
Adams is accused of taking improper gifts from Turkish officials and businesspeople, including $123,000 in free or heavily discounted hotels and flights that date back to his time as the Brooklyn borough president a decade ago.
In exchange for the apparent freebies, Adams coughed up favors — including pressuring city officials to push through speedy approvals for the Turkish Consulate in Manhattan, court papers say.
He also fraudulently obtained $10 million in matching public campaign funds via straw donors from foreign sources, the feds allege.
Spiro said on Sept. 26 that “there is no corruption, this is not a real case.”
The attorney also accused the feds of illegally leaking secret grand jury information to the media to “unfairly prejudice the defendant.”
“The prejudice from these leaks has been severe,” Spiro and the defense team wrote in a motion to dismiss the case.
“A cascade of critical articles based on one-sided, misleading leaks by the government has eroded public support for the Mayor long before he was ever charged with a crime and able to defend himself in court.”
The mayor’s indictment came close on the heels of a series of federal raids that targeted Adams’ top lieutenants, key aides and close allies.
Although it’s not clear what the feds were looking for, sources say authorities have been looking for evidence of corruption and influence peddling, among other things.
Several top officials have already stepped down over the raids, including former NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban and aide Tim Pearson.
