NYC Mayor Eric Adams gets $2k-an-hour star lawyer whose clients include Elon Musk, Jay-Z and Alec Baldwin

New York’s City Hall has hired a $2000-an-hour celebrity lawyer to represent Mayor Eric Adams in a lawsuit accusing him of sexually assaulting a fellow city employee in 1993.

Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan is coming on as co-counsel in the case against Mr Adams, according to court documents, with taxpayers footing the bill.

Mr Spiro, who has “come to specialize in protecting the rich and famous from the consequences of their poorest decisions,” has previously represented celebrities including Elon Musk, Jay-Z and Alec Baldwin, according to a profile in the New Yorker.

Last year, he charged JP Morgan Chase $2,025 an hour for work on a fraud case, Bloomberg reported. However, officials at City Hall said they will be getting a discount, claiming they will be charged less than one-eighth of that cost: $250 an hour for work by partners and $175 for work by associates.

It is unclear how much Mr Spiro’s legal fees will cost overall, but a City Hall law department spokesperson previously suggested that the city expects the case to take up significant time and resources.

Mr Adams, who is paid $258,000 a year, will not have to pay the fees himself.

City Corporation Counsel Sylvia Hinds-Radix, who leads City Hall’s law department, confirmed last month that Mr Adams qualified for free legal representation from the city because he was an employee of the Transit Police when the offence he is accused of took place.

He is being accused by a former colleague, Lorna Beach-Mathura, of sexually propositioning her when she asked for career advice in 1993.

She has claimed that when she allegedly rejected Mr Adams’ advances, he masturbated in front of her and then stymied her career.

Mr Adams has strongly denied the claims in the lawsuit, which was filed under the Adult Survivors Act, and he has insisted he doesn’t even recall meeting the plaintiff.

Despite this, observers have suggested that Mr Spiro’s hire shows Mr Adams’ team is not prepared to just brush the allegation off.

“They scoffed at whether any of us should pay attention because the allegations were so spurious — and this is not the behavior you’d expect in response to that,” civil rights attorney Janos Marton told Politico.

Mr Marton is currently trying to recruit a left-leaning Democrat to run against Mr Adams and challenge his re-election.

The suit against Mr Adams comes amid an FBI investigation into his 2021 campaign, which prompted agents to seize his cellphones and raid the home of his chief campaign fundraiser.

The FBI is investigating whether Mr Adams inappropriately tried to help the government of Turkey get city approval to open a 35-storey skyscraper housing diplomatic facilities in 2021, despite concerns about the tower’s fire safety systems.

Mr Adams has admitted lobbying the former FDNY commissioner over safety delays to the opening of a new Turkish consulate in New York in 2021, but has denied all wrongdoing.