Disturbing details of a decades-old sexual assault complaint leveled against Mayor Eric Adams under the Adult Survivor’s Act in November were revealed in a Monday court filing.
The mayor’s accuser — identified in court documents as Lorna Beach-Mathura — alleges in the complaint that in 1993, when Adams was a cop and she was a civilian worker in the NYPD’s Transit Bureau, he demanded oral sex from her in exchange for advocating on her behalf with the department. The suit was filed in New York County Supreme Court.
Beach-Mathura claims she had sought Adams’ help as he was a leader of the NYPD Guardians Association, a fraternal organization that fights for the rights of Black officers, after she says she was passed over for several promotions. Instead, she claims, Adams sexually assaulted her by allegedly placing her hand on his genitalia, then masturbating on her leg.
The mayor, who will be defended by the city’s Law Department, continued to deny the allegations in a Monday statement from the city’s Corporation Counsel Sylvia Hinds-Radix.
“While we review the complaint, the mayor fully denies these outrageous allegations and the events described here; we expect full vindication in court,” Hinds-Radix siad. “Additionally, in 1993, Eric Adams was one of the most prominent public opponents of the racism within the NYPD, which is why the suit’s allegations that he had any sway over promotions of civilian employees is ludicrous.”
Beach-Mathura alleges sexual assault, battery, infliction of emotional distress, gender discrimination, retaliation and sexual harassment and is seeking an unspecified amount in monetary damages and attorney’s fees.
In addition to Adams, the Transit Bureau and the Guardians Association are also named as defendants in the suit.
“Instead of helping plaintiff get fair treatment … Defendant Adams preyed on her perceived vulnerability, demanding a quid pro quo sexual favor and sexually assaulting Plaintiff, revealing himself not to be the “Guardian” he purported to be, but a predator,” the complaint reads. “The effects of that sexual assault, betrayal, and astonishing abuse of power, continue to haunt Plaintiff to this day.”
Inside the filing
In the filing, Beach-Mathura, who was one of only a few Black female employees in the NYPD Transit Bureau at the time, details that she sought Adams’ help upon running into him on the day of the alleged incident after getting passed over for several promotions due to racism and sexism she had witnessed in the department since joining it in 1980. Adams, according to the complaint, said he could help Beach-Mathura and offered to drive her home to Coney Island to discuss the matter in greater detail.
But while driving Beach-Mathura, she claims Adams went in the opposite direction from where she lived and pulled into a remote parking lot that was vacant and dark.
After again explaining to Adams what she needed assistance with, Beach-Mathura recounts that he said he could help her but that he “also needed some help” and began rubbing his erection. The now-mayor then said he “needed a blow job,” according to the complaint, demanding that she masturbate him. When she refused again, he allegedly placed her hand on his erection, then masturbated on her to completion.
“Plaintiff, stunned to find herself trapped in a car with Defendant Adams in an abandoned lot, was terrified,” the complaint reads. “She did not know what to do, but she knew that she did not want to be forced into a sexual encounter with Defendant Adams.”
Beach-Mathura was “frightened” throughout the incident both because of Adams’ alleged conduct and the knowledge that he had a loaded gun in the car, according to the complaint.
The mayor’s accuser also says that she was transferred to the Department of Probation under the guise of the promotion she was seeking and later laid off after the incident, which she alleges was retaliation by Adams for denying him sexual gratification.
Since Beach-Mathura first filed legal papers indicating that she would bring a suit against him over the alleged misconduct in November, Adams has flatly denied that he sexually assaulted anyone.
The filing occurred right before the window to submit a lawsuit under the Adult Survivors Act, a law that established a one-year look-back period allowing those who believe they were sexually assaulted to take civil action against their alleged abusers even if the statute of limitations had expired, closed.
The mayor and his chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, in November, publicly casted doubt on the validity of Beach-Mathura’s claim, pointing to her history of bringing lawsuits and a book she wrote on taking pro-se legal action.
Zornberg characterized Adams’ accuser as “a person who … in her own words, is so litigious that she’s written a book on how to file lawsuits telling people to follow her lead because quote, ‘you just may win.’”
