New York City has tapped a star lawyer, whose clients include Elon Musk and Jay-Z, to represent Mayor Eric Adams in a lawsuit accusing him of sexually assaulting a fellow transit cop over three decades ago.
Alex Spiro, a partner at the Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan law firm, was hired by New York City Law Department to serve as co-counsel in the case against Mr. Adams, a Manhattan Supreme Court notice submitted Monday said.
The 41-year-old attorney has served as counsel for a number of high-profile celebrities, including Alec Baldwin, Jay-Z, Megan Thee Stallion, and Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
The most prominent figure on his client list is probably Elon Musk, who sought Mr. Spiro’s legal counsel in 2019 in a $190 million defamation lawsuit after calling one of the rescuers of a boys soccer team trapped in a Thai cave a “pedo guy.” A federal jury in Los Angeles found Mr. Musk not guilty.
In 2022, Mr. Spiro further represented Mr. Musk during his turbulent acquisition of Twitter, advocating on his behalf amidst the investors’ lawsuit stemming from his Twitter posts about the $44 billion deal they claimed were false and misleading. He has since remained the Twitter owner’s go-to legal adviser, overseeing the social media platform’s legal, marketing, and trust teams.
The celebrity attorney is said to charge some of his wealthy clients up to $2,000 per hour. However, the law department said Mr. Spiro is expected to bill the city $250 per hour to represent the mayor and $175 per hour to have any associates at his firm work on the case.
Taxpayers’ dollars will be used to cover the legal bills, according to the city.
“In certain cases, the Law Department retains outside firms to provide assistance during litigation,” said Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesperson for the law department. “We retained the firm of Quinn Emanuel to serve as co-counsel to assist us in representing the city and the mayor in this case to ensure the Law Department can maximize its existing resources on our numerous other matters.”
The law department will continue to represent Mr. Adams with Mr. Spiro in the case, according to Monday’s court filing.
The lawsuit against Mr. Adams, filed by Lorna Beach-Mathura, revolves around an incident that allegedly took place in 1993 while the two worked together at the New York Police Department’s Transit Bureau.
Now a resident of Florida, Ms. Beach-Mathura claims Mr. Adams assaulted her after offering to help her get a promotion. She seeks damages of no less than $5 million, along with attorneys’ fees.
Mr. Adams has vehemently denied the sexual assault accusation, claiming that he doesn’t recall ever meeting his accuser.
“This did not happen,” he told reporters last month. “It’s not who I am.”
The decision to hire Mr. Spiro comes weeks after Mr. Adams’ corporation counsel, Sylvia Hinds‑Radix, tried to justify providing the mayor with taxpayer-salaried lawyers to defend him in this civil case, noting that the alleged 1993 incident took place while he was a city employee.
“The corporation counsel’s office employs some 750 attorneys to represent the city and city workers under this circumstance, so that’s how that is done,” Ms. Hinds‑Radix, who will still be part of the mayor’s defense team, told reporters at a March 19 press briefing.
“We represent police officers and everybody else,” she said.
The suit against Mr. Adams was able to progress because of a bill signed into law by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in May 2022. The bill dubbed the Adult Survivors Act, granted alleged victims of sexual assault a special one-year window to file a civil case, regardless of when the alleged assault took place. It has since led to a torrent of civil lawsuits against some of the most influential men, including former President Donald Trump and comedy legend Bill Cosby.
