Mayor Eric Adams’ legal defense fund raised just $2,200 from two donors over the last three months, even as his expenses to battle federal corruption charges mount ahead of an expected April trial, new filings show.
The donors include Tzvi Odzer, who donated $2,000 to the fund. A convicted bank fraudster with multiple aliases, Odzer was pardoned by outgoing president Donald Trump on his last day in office in 2021.
Odzer, who also gave $1,000 to Adams’ reelection campaign in 2023, didn’t respond to a phone message seeking comment.
The only other new donor to the fund, Alan Sclar, is an attorney who also previously donated to Adams’ reelection campaign..
The trickle of recent donations raises Adams’ total haul for his legal defense to about $1.65 million. The trust has refunded roughly $167,000 in contributions, many of which came from family members of people engaged in business with city government, who are prohibited from donating.
The trust has paid out more than $2.5 million since it was established in late 2023, shortly after federal agents seized Adams’ cell phones and other electronic devices in a probe of his 2021 mayoral campaign.
The lack of fundraising in recent months has grown the trust’s negative balance to roughly $900,000, largely because of mammoth legal fees to Adams’ high-priced defense team that were paid in the most recent quarter.
In October, the trust paid a $200,000 retainer to Quinn Emmanuel, the firm of celebrity lawyer Alex Spiro, who Adams hired a month after being indicted by the office of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney for allegedly conspiring to take illicit donations from Turkish foreign nationals in exchange for favorable treatment by the government.
In November, the trust paid out $411,000 to the firm Adams initially hired to handle his defense amid the federal probe, Wilmer Cutler, which has reaped the vast majority of funds paid out to date. Payments to Wilmer Cutler included a nearly $200,000 expense that was dated September 5. That substantial expenditure showed up in Adams’ disclosures for the first time on Wednesday even though it fell in the prior reporting period.
The figures were submitted to the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board by Adams’ legal defense trust, which is in care of his mayoral campaign attorney Vito Pitta, of Pitta LLP.
An email to Pitta seeking confirmation of those numbers, as well as an explanation for how Adams intends to pay for his mounting legal bills, did not receive an immediate reply Wednesday night.
When Adams was asked that question in early October, after it was reported that the trust was about $43,000 in the red, he insisted he wasn’t concerned about paying the 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.
He has vociferously maintained his innocence throughout the ordeal, saying he’s done nothing wrong, even as his tight circle of friends and advisors, who formerly held top posts in his administration, has been undone by law enforcement investigations or actions.
Adams’ predecessor, Mayor Bill de Blasio, also racked up significant legal bills in office in the face of multiple probes of his political fundraising, including from the same U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan.
De Blasio left City Hall in December 2021 without paying hundreds of thousands of dollars of outstanding legal bills to the firm Kramer Levin, and has provided no sign since that the bills have been paid off.
