Mayor Adams’ legal defense trust, which he has used to cover lawyer fees during his corruption case, is still more than $3 million in the red after not receiving any donations in six months — a debt that doesn’t include the potential for more recent bills from his most expensive attorney, new disclosures show.
The latest disclosures confirm Adams’ trust didn’t raise any funds over the latest reporting period, which spanned April 1 to June 30. That comes after Adams didn’t take in any donations in the window before that, between Jan. 1 and March 31, per filings.
In the most recent stretch, the Adams trust’s expenses were also relatively low, clocking in at less than $20,000, most of it paid to the law firm of Vito Pitta, the mayor’s compliance counsel. In total, that means Adams is just shy of $3.1 million in debt, the filings reveal.
The latest disclosure, however, doesn’t include any disbursements to the law firm of Alex Spiro, the high-paid celebrity attorney who was Adams’ lead defense counsel during his corruption case and played a key role in convincing President Trump’s Justice Department to quash the indictment as part of a controversial deal this spring.
The last filing covering January-March didn’t include any payments to Spiro, either.
Spiro was working on Adams’ defense throughout the spring, at least until May, when he was involved in discussions around how search warrant materials from the case should be publicly released after the mayor’s indictment was formally tossed.
The last time Adams’ trust did pay Spiro was in December 2024, when it disbursed $775,000 to his law firm to cover legal fees billed for that month, filings show.
Spiro didn’t return a request for comment Friday, and neither did Pitta.
The legal debts loom over the mayor as he faces an uphill battle in seeking a second term.
Running as an independent in November’s election, he’s polling well behind Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani. Adams’ approval ratings are also at historic lows amid accusations he entered into a corrupt deal with Trump to get his criminal case quashed — a claim he denies.
Originally Published: August 8, 2025 at 1:14 PM EDT
