New York Mayor Eric Adams has apparently been charged with alleged sexual harassment. According to US media reports, it is about a case from 1993, when Adams was a police officer in the largest city in the USA. A woman from Florida is now accusing him of harassment in office. The lawsuit was filed this Wednesday in the New York borough of Manhattan, as the New York Times reported.
Adams denies being guilty of sexual harassment. “People know my character, they see who I am and how I behave. This never happened and I don’t remember ever meeting the plaintiff,” Adams told reporters.
Details about the case, i.e. what exactly happened, were not publicly disclosed. The woman’s identity has not yet been revealed. Apparently it is a former colleague in the police force, because the allegations are not only directed against Adams personally, but also against the police department in question. The woman complains that she was not only sexually harassed, but also discriminated against and deliberately exposed to psychological stress at work. Neither the police nor the plaintiff’s lawyer commented on the case.
The lawsuit was filed citing a law in the state of New York that was only passed in 2022. It allows those affected by sexual violence to report cases that are actually time-barred, even decades after the crime. The law provides a time window of exactly one year for this. This deadline is running, she writes New York Timesstarting this Friday.
There have been around 2,500 lawsuits in connection with this law Adult Survivors Act, given so far, writes the newspaper. Numerous cases have been filed in the past few days in particular. For example, Guns ‘n’ Roses singer Axl Rose and rapper Sean Combs are also facing allegations. One of the trials against Donald Trump also falls under this Adult Survivors Act. Author E. Jean Carroll accuses the ex-president of sexually abusing her in 1996 and later defaming her.