A former police colleague of New York City Mayor Eric Adams claims in a bombshell new lawsuit alleging sexual assault that he exposed himself to her and demanded she perform oral sex on him in exchange for help with a job issue more than three decades ago.
The accuser, Lorna Beach-Mathura, first came forward in November by filing a notice of claim saying she planned to sue Adams for sexual assault. The brief November filing didn’t include specifics about the accusation.
In response to the newly filed lawsuit, Sylvia Hinds-Radix, the city government’s corporation counsel who’s representing Adams in the sexual assault case, said the mayor vehemently denies Beach-Mathura’s accusations.
“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 said in a statement.
The suit, filed Monday afternoon in Manhattan Supreme Court, alleges the incident took place in 1993, when Beach-Mathura and Adams both worked for the city Transit Police Department.
In addition to being a transit cop, Adams was at the time a top official for the Guardians Association, a Black police officers’ organization. Beach-Mathura, who was also a Guardians member, alleges Adams picked her up in his car after work in Manhattan and brought her to a vacant lot near the Hudson River after he had agreed to meet with her to talk about helping her get a promotion in the Transit Police Department.
Beach-Mathura said she went to Adams with the employment issue because she found him “inspiring” and thought he could help in his capacity as a Guardians leader. She alleges she first got to know Adams from working with him years earlier.
Initially, Beach-Mathura alleges in the lawsuit Adams was going to pick her up and give her a ride home to Coney Island to talk. Once in the car, she realized instead that he was headed to an area near the Hudson River, which made her “nervous and scared,” the lawsuit says.
Once in the empty lot, Beach-Mathura alleges Adams asked her to explain her employment issue. After she did, “Adams told Plaintiff that he thought he could help her but that he ‘also needed some help’ and began rubbing his penis through his clothes with his hand,” according to the lawsuit.
Adams then told her he wanted oral sex from her in exchange for his help, the court paper says. The lawsuit says “while repeatedly cajoling, demanding, and begging Plaintiff for oral sex, Defendant Adams unzipped his pants” and exposed himself.
Beach-Mathura alleges she “repeatedly and adamantly refused” Adams’ overtures. The suit claims Adams then “assaulted” Beach-Mathura “by grabbing her hand and placing it on his exposed” genitals and told her to masturbate him.
Beach-Mathura alleges she again refused, repeatedly saying, “No,” and trying to pull her hand away. Beach-Mathura “feared that she would be raped” by Adams, but “tried to remain calm,” the lawsuit alleges.
“Plaintiff was frightened not only due to Defendant Adams’ appalling conduct, but also because she knew that he, as a police officer, had at least one loaded gun in the car,” her lawsuit charges.
Beach-Mathura claims that after several more attempts, Adams stopped trying to talk her into a sex act, and instead started masturbating. Court papers say semen from Adams landed on Beach-Mathura’s thigh and stocking.
After the alleged assault, Beach-Mathura claims in the suit that Adams told her he needed to get back to work. He then drove her to the Chambers St. subway station in Manhattan where he dropped her off, according to the suit.
She alleges Adams never helped her with the employment issue. She left city government in 1994 and currently lives in Florida, where she has worked as a public school teacher.
Beach-Mathura claims she told “numerous people” about the alleged assault, including current and former NYPD officials as well as her two daughters, according to the suit.
She said she never formally reported the incident out of fear of retaliation from Adams, the Guardians or the NYPD, all of whom are named as defendants in her lawsuit. In addition to accusing Adams of sexual assault and battery, Beach-Mathura’s suit says the Guardians and the NYPD violated anti-gender violence laws by having “enabled” his alleged behavior.
The NYPD and the Guardians did not immediately return requests for comment on Beach-Mathura’s suit, which is seeking $5 million in damages.