NYC Mayor Eric Adams accused of sexual assault 30 years ago in court filing

NEW YORK – A woman has accused New York City Mayor Eric Adams of sexually assaulting her three decades ago, according to a summons filed in Manhattan court on Wednesday.

The legal filing also lists the New York City Police Department’s transit bureau and the Guardians Association of the NYPD as defendants, along with three other entities that aren’t identified. No other details about the allegations against Adams, a former transit police officer, are provided in the three-page document filed in New York County Supreme Court.

“Plaintiff was sexually assaulted by Defendant Eric Adams in New York, New York in 1993 while they both worked for the City of New York,” the filing said.

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USA TODAY is not publishing the woman's name listed in the filing out of respect for her privacy. The woman’s attorney, Megan Goddard, was not available for comment.

The case was filed under the state’s expiring Adult Survivors Act, which gave a one-year window to file cases retroactively for sexual assault.

The woman is seeking $5 million in damages, the filing said.

On Thursday, Adams responded to the allegations, telling reporters it "absolutely did not happen" and that he didn't recall meeting the person.

"That is not who I am, and that is not who I've ever been in my professional life," he said, according to a video posted by a Fox 5 New York reporter on X. "It's just something that never took place."

It’s unclear in what capacity the woman worked for the city. The NYPD referred comments to City Hall.

Adams, a Democrat, has touted his record of more than 20 years in law enforcement, beginning as a New York City transit police officer in the 1980s before rising to captain. In 1994, New York Magazine identified him as the head of the Guardians, the Black NYPD officer association. He also founded 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, which questioned the NYPD’s tactics around policing, discrimination and stop-and-frisk.

He went on to be elected as a state senator and Brooklyn borough president before he became mayor in 2022.

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What is the Adult Survivors Act?

The Adult Survivors Act also has been used against other high-profile figures, including former President Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, Sean "Diddy" Combs and Columbia University gynecologist Robert Hadden, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for molesting patients.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Adult Survivors Act into law in 2022, providing one year for people who say they experienced sexual assault when they were over the age of 18 to sue their abusers, regardless of when the abuse occurred. The window opened in Nov. 24, 2022, and more than 2,500 lawsuits had been filed as of earlier this week. The law expires Friday.

Adams is also facing an FBI investigation into his 2021 mayoral campaign around ties to Turkey. Earlier this month, FBI agents seized Adams’ phones and raided the home of people close to the mayor, including a City Hall staffer and a top fundraiser for his campaign, according to the New York Daily News. A counsel for Adams told the Daily News he’s cooperating with the investigation.