Mayor Eric Adams claims key documents lost in Hurricane Sandy in $5M sex assault lawsuit

The hurricane ate my records! 

That’s what city lawyers told a former NYPD worker suing Mayor Eric Adams for sexual assault, claiming that Hurricane Sandy wiped out Adam’s personnel records in 2012.

Lorna Beach-Mathura, the former department employee accusing Adams of assaulting her over three decades ago, had requested records and documents to disprove claims by Adams that the pair never worked together.

City attorneys told ex-NYPD official Lorna Beach-Mathura, who is suing Mayor Eric Adams for sexual assault, that Hurricane Sandy wiped out Adams’ personnel records in 2012. Paul Martinka

“All physical personnel records and employment folders maintained for Defendant Adams were destroyed when the Kingsland Avenue warehouse suffered extensive damage from flooding during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012,” city attorney Maxwell Leighton wrote of the Greenpoint storage facility back in May.

The letter, filed Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court, came nearly a year after Beach-Mathura’s legal team first made the discovery request.

Her lawyers called the latest excuse “disingenuous” and “a transparent attempt to delay and frustrate the discovery process.”

“The timing and substance of this disclosure are highly suspect, surfacing only now after more than a year of requests for these records and nearly two years into litigation,” attorney Siobhan Klassen wrote to city lawyers in response.

Beach-Mathura, who worked for the department over three decades ago, has requested records to prove she worked with Mayor Adams when the alleged assault occurred. Goddard Law

Klassen also demanded that the city produce “detailed” chain of custody records to prove that “Adams’ files were stored in the affected location and irretrievably lost due to flood damage.”

The letters, first reported by The Daily News, note that the city has not even produced requested electronic records on claims that the request was “overbroad.”

In a letter to Judge Richard G. Latin, Megan Goddard — another of Beach-Mathura’s lawyers — accuses Adams and the city of “willful obstruction” and that they’re unable to “comply voluntarily.”

Goddard requested Latin to order a sworn statement regarding the alleged destruction.

Beach-Mathura sued Adams for $5 million in 2023 over claims that he demanded she perform oral sex on him, and that he masturbated and ejaculated on her when she refused. 

Adams’ private lawyer, Alex Spiro, made similar claims of discovery deficiencies against Beach-Mathura last year.