The New Yorker:

By Eric Lach

Shortly before 9 a.m., Mayor Eric Adams tensely flashed a thumbs-up at a Daily News photographer, as he walked inside the federal courthouse a few blocks from City Hall. Inside, he was processed and then later led to a courtroom on the twenty-sixth floor, where he waited for about a half hour before a magistrate judge came in to oversee the first federal arraignment of a sitting mayor of New York City. “Mayor Adams, do you understand your rights as I’ve just explained them?” the judge asked, after telling Adams that he had a right to an attorney, and to remain silent, and to hear the charges against him read aloud. “Yes I do, Your Honor,” Adams said. On Wednesday, he had pledged to fight the case “with every ounce of my strength and my spirit.”

For most of the twenty-minute proceeding on Friday, Adams sat passively, hands folded on his lap, occasionally scratching his face. He is charged with wire fraud, bribery, soliciting foreign campaign contributions, and conspiracy. He told the judge that he had read the fifty-seven-page indictment that had been filed against him, and when asked to enter a plea, he said, “I am not guilty, Your Honor.” Prosecutors said that they had agreed to release Adams pretrial with few restrictions. He does not have to surrender his passport. He does have to avoid talking to witnesses in the case about the case itself, although the prosecutors said they were willing to be reasonable if Adams needed to have contact with staff members who may be called to testify at an eventual trial.

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