Indicted New York City Mayor Eric Adams told a federal judge on Wednesday that he wants his criminal trial on bribery charges to be over by March 2025 so he can run for reelection without the case hanging over him, Courthouse News reports. “At trial we expect the mayor to be acquitted,” defense attorney Alex Spiro told the federal judge presiding over Adams’ bribery case. “What we’re asking is to have this case resolved … before when the election process meaningfully begins.” The outcome for Adams’ reelection campaign could be “quite different being an acquitted, innocent man rather than a man under the weight of this case,” said Spiro, a lawyer for Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. During an initial conference in the case on Wednesday morning, Ho set a schedule for pretrial motions and deadlines for evidence gathering, but held off setting a trial date for Adams.
Adams is accused in the indictment of trading his political influence to foreign nationals, including Turkish government officials and businessmen, in exchange for more than $100,000 in undisclosed luxury travel perks, including a high-end hotel stay, free airline flights and upgrades arranged by a diplomat from Turkey. Federal prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Dale Ho that they expect Adams’ trial to take four weeks, including three weeks for the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s case-in-chief, and one week for Adams’ defense case. They also said that a superseding indictment is "quite likely." Spiro quickly rebutted the prosecution’s time estimate: "I don’t see the government’s case taking more than a week," he said. “We don’t believe they have any evidence in this case to prove these charges."
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