The fund that Mayor Eric Adams set up to help pay for his legal defense in his recently dismissed federal corruption case has not raised a single dollar in the last three months and is $3.2 million in the red, the latest filings show.
The previous report in mid-January showed a deficit of close to $1 million, as Adams struggled to raise money from donors in the face of mounting legal bills.
Since then, he has reported $2.2 million in new expenses — almost entirely for high-priced celebrity attorney Alex Spiro and his team at Quinn Emanuel, for work that was conducted in 2024.
Adams’ criminal case was dismissed April 2 by Manhattan Federal Judge Dale Ho. The positive outcome for Adams could help spur additional fundraising, which would be reported in the next filing, due in July, to the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board. But the legal bills are likely to climb as well for work conducted recently.
Just ahead of the dismissal, Adams told the hosts of the “Flagrant Podcast” how dire the impact of his indictment was.
“I’m facing 35 years in jail – think about it, think about it – and it cost me over $3 million,” he said.
“Personally?” responded host Andrew Schulz.
“Right,” Adams answered.
In October, when the legal defense trust was only $43,000 in the red, Adams insisted he’d find a way to pay his tab.
“I have legal bills, and I’m going to pay my bills. That’s how I live my life. I will pay my bills,” Adams said at the time.
Adams’ campaign attorney, Vito Pitta, who is also overseeing the legal defense fund, didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. The fund was created in late 2023 after federal law enforcement agents seized Adams cell phones and other electronic devices as part of their probe.
It can accept donations as high as $5,000 per person, except from those with business before the city or their family members (the fund has returned about $167,000 in donations).
A federal grand jury indicted Adams on five counts in September 2024, including bribery and wire fraud, as part of a conspiracy in which he allegedly solicited illegal donations from Turkish foreign nationals in exchange for favorable treatment from the city government.
Adams maintained his innocence throughout the ordeal, and leaned on Spiro — who has represented Jay-Z and Elon Musk — to aggressively file motions trying to get certain charges or the entire case dismissed.
Spiro was the first person Adams thanked after the dismissal.
After the presidential election in November, Adams began to cozy up to the incoming administration, meeting with President-elect Donald Trump near Mar-a-Lago and attending Trump’s inauguration in Washington D.C. in January.
On Feb. 10, Emil Bove, the then-acting U.S. deputy attorney general, sent a memo to Manhattan federal prosecutors ordering them to file a motion to dismiss Adams’ case without prejudice, which means that the federal government could revisit the charges at a later date.
Bove noted that his order wasn’t based on an evaluation of the merits of the case, but rather that it impeded Adams’ ability to work with the Trump administration on an immigration crackdown.
The request prompted a flurry of resignations of federal prosecutors in both Manhattan and Washington D.C., including then acting Manhattan U.S. attorney Danielle Sassoon, who argued in a letter that dismissal would amount to a quid pro quo deal and resigned rather than carry out the order.
On Valentine’s Day, the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the case, which Bove personally signed.
In his April 2 ruling, Ho dismissed the case with prejudice, out of concern for the leverage that federal officials would maintain over Adams if they retained the ability to prosecute him at any time.
He said rejecting the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the case, which a number of former judges and prosecutors encouraged him to do, wasn’t an option because “a court cannot force the Department of Justice to prosecute a defendant.”
After the dismissal, Adams announced he was no longer running in the Democratic primary for mayor, and would instead run as an independent in the general election.
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