New York City Mayor Eric Adams was accused of sexual assault and battery in a lawsuit filed Monday.
The suit alleges that in 1993, while he was a New York Police Department (NYPD) officer, Adams demanded sexual favors in exchange for helping a woman receive a promotion in the police department.
The claims expand on a summons filed in November via the Adult Survivors Act, a state law that allows sexual assault victims to bring civil suits far after traditional statutes of limitations.
The lawsuit states that the woman sought out Adams’s advice as an influential member of the fraternal Guardians Association. She said that she had been repeatedly passed over for promotions despite good job performance.
Adams gave the woman a ride home from work and then demanded oral sex, the suit claims. When she declined, he masturbated in front of her, it continued.
“Adams preyed on her perceived vulnerability, demanding a quid pro quo sexual favor,” the suit reads, “revealing himself not to be the ‘Guardian’ he purported to be, but a predator.”
New York City counsel Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix described the suit as “ludicrous.”
“While we review the complaint, the mayor fully denies these outrageous allegations and the events described here,” she said in a statement to The Associated Press. “We expect full vindication in court.”
Adams has vehemently denied the claims, saying in November that an assault “absolutely did not happen.”
“I don’t recall ever meeting this person, and I would never harm anyone in that magnitude,” Adams said. “It did not happen, and that is not who I am and that is not who I’ve ever been in my professional life and, you know, it’s just something that never took place.”
The NYPD Transit Bureau — the woman’s employer at the time — and the NYPD Guardians Association are also defendants in the case.