NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors alleged in a recent court filing that New York City Mayor Eric Adams engaged in illegal activity beyond the bribery case laid out in a September indictment.
On Monday night, officials from the Department of Justice submitted a motion to the court that mentioned the additional evidence in the “ongoing investigation,” but did not go into detail about what it showed.
“Although the indictment and discovery provide Adams with more than sufficient information as to his alleged co-conspirators and aiders and abettors, law enforcement has continued to identify additional individuals involved in Adams’s conduct, and to uncover additional criminal conduct by Adams,” Edward Kim, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District in New York, wrote.
The filing was designed to push back on a request from Adams’ attorney, Alex Spiro, that the government provide a detailed list of evidence, called a bill of particulars, which it will be using at trial. In opposing that ask, Kim said prosecutors did not want to be hemmed in by the list at trial, and that disclosing the names of additional co-conspirators in advance would allow Adams to engage in witness tampering.
“The Indictment provides ample cause to believe that as potential witnesses became known to Adams and his allies, measures were taken to influence their testimony,” Kim wrote, citing a portion of the initial indictment alleging an Adams staffer instructed a business owner to destroy evidence relevant to the case. “And even without a likelihood of physical violence, the threat of witness tampering further supports denial of a bill of particulars in a white-collar case.”
Neither Spiro nor Kim’s office immediately responded to a request for comment, but Adams addressed the revelations at an unrelated press conference.
“Even Ray Charles can see what is going on,” Adams said. “I have an attorney, Alex Spiro, who is handling that. I’ve said over and over again: I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Adams is set to face trial in April on a five-count indictment that alleges he accepted bribes and illicit campaign contributions from individuals connected to the Turkish government in exchange for asking the city’s former FDNY commissioner about the status of a Midtown construction project owned by Turkey.
Adams has pleaded not guilty.
The government has previously hinted they may have more allegations against the New York City mayor. During an October hearing, an assistant U.S. attorney told Judge Dale Ho it was possible that the justice department would file a superseding indictment against Adams.
Yet since then, prosecutors have made no such effort. And Adams’ legal team — which has now reviewed reams of evidence held by the U.S. attorney via the discovery process — has expressed confidence federal gumshoes don’t have the goods.
“The incriminating evidence the government hoped to obtain does not exist,” Spiro wrote in a December filing. “The government’s ‘evidence’ thus reveals what defense counsel knew all along: this case is an egregious overreach by prosecutors with no interest in a search for the truth.”