Lawyers for Mayor Eric Adams doubled down on Friday on accusations that the government leaked sensitive information that could jeopardize his federal bribery case.
In a new filing published Friday morning, Adams’ defense team did not mince words about the leaks – arguing that federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York, law enforcement agencies and news outlets released sensitive information that tainted public perception of the mayor before a grand jury could hear the case.
“One of two things happened here,” the lawyers began. “Either the government leaked grand jury information in violation of Rule 6(e), or multiple subjects of a criminal investigation independently leaked self-derogating information, contrary to their own self-interest.”
The mayor’s defense team, led by Alex Spiro, first brought up the leaks in a motion they filed about a week after his initial indictment – blaming federal prosecutors for sharing the information. They called for an evidentiary hearing to explore what was shared and sanctions to “plug the leaks prospectively.”
Two weeks later, federal prosecutors responded with a motion of their own, blaming law enforcement sources, the targets of the investigation and anyone else they may have spoken to. Prosecutors said the sources quoted by multiple news outlets, including the New York Times and the New York Post, “appeared to be far removed from the prosecution team” because some of the details in those stories were inaccurate.
Friday morning’s filing was the defense team’s rebuttal to those claims.
“Only someone positioned inside the DOJ, FBI or [the city’s Department of Investigation] could have leaked all this information,” they wrote.
DOI spokesperson Diane Struzzi said the agency would not comment. The FBI did not immediately respond.
Daniel Richman, a former prosecutor with the Southern District of New York, said allegations of leaks are “straight out of the aggressive white-collar defense lawyer playbook,” but should still be taken seriously.
“It's an easy call for defense counsel to wrong foot the government and to try to, at the very least, get hearings that would allow them to embarrass the government and maybe perhaps get some useful information for their own case,” he said. “It’s hard to get to the bottom of leaks.”
Representatives from the New York Times and the New York Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment about their reporters’ involvement in the allegations.
