NYC Law Department will not represent Mayor Eric Adams in Council suit over ICE on Rikers

Josephine Stratman, New York Daily News on Apr 16, 2025

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NEW YORK — The city’s Law Department will not represent Mayor Eric Adams or his administration in the City Council’s lawsuit against him over an executive order that would allow federal immigration authorities on Rikers Island, according to court papers filed Wednesday.

“The New York City Law Department has advised that they will not be representing any party in this litigation,” Allison Stoddart, the mayor’s chief counsel, wrote in the letter to the Manhattan Supreme Court clerk last night.

This is an unusual move by the Law Department, which typically represents the administration, including in cases brought by the Council. The mayor, First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro and the city’s Department of Corrections will instead seek outside counsel.

Kayla Mamelak, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said the city will still foot the bill.

“Due to the fact that the New York City Law Department has provided advice to both sides of City Hall on the scope of the city’s sanctuary city laws, it has removed itself from representing either side of City Hall in this litigation,” Muriel Goode-Trufant, the head of the Law Department, said in a statement.

The Council sued the administration on Tuesday, claiming that the Rikers order was unlawfully issued by Mastro as the “poisoned fruit” of a corrupt quid pro quo deal with the Trump administration. They are asking for the court to rescind the order and block the administration from allowing ICE at the complex. The suit focuses on alleged violations of the City Charter rather than on the sanctuary city laws themselves.

“I cannot recall a single instance in which the Law Department elected not to represent this mayor, or prior ones, when that officeholder was sued in his official capacity. The only rational conclusion that can be drawn from this remarkable decision was that the Law Department as an institution could not stand behind the mayor and the first deputy mayor’s actions,” the Council’s lawyer, Jason Otaño, wrote in a response.

Stoddart’s letter called the lawsuit “premature” since ICE has not actually moved into Rikers office space yet, as there’s not a memorandum of understanding between the city and feds that would formalize the decision.

She wrote that the administration wanted to move forward on putting together the formal agreement, and offered to give “notice” to the Council before that agreement became effective.

Otaño called that offer “legally meaningless.”

Adams has been widely accused of entering into a corrupt bargain with the Trump administration. After being indicted on federal corruption charges in September, Adams’ lawyers pleaded his case to Trump’s Department of Justice, saying the case impended his ability to carry out the president’s immigration agenda in the city.

The DOJ moved to dismiss the case in February, and the judge in the case dropped the case earlier this month.

The Council’s suit argues that Adams had agreed to a quid pro quo with the Trump administration, agreeing to exchange the Rikers order for the feds working to drop his case. Adams has denied any quid pro quo exists. Mastro’s signing off on the order didn’t change that, the Council argues.

“The mayor’s decision to have Mastro issue the executive order … does not magically cleanse the taint of conflict from the order,” reads the petition.

Meanwhile, the mayor’s’ legal defense trust is more than $3 million in the negative after Adams did not receive a single contribution in the latest reporting period, leaving him with a huge debt to deal with even as he celebrates the dismissal of his federal corruption case, his team disclosed in a Tuesday night filing.