Facing a federal criminal indictment, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has lawyered up by hiring a prominent litigator with extensive music industry experience, including representing Jay-Z and Megan Thee Stallion.
According to Bloomberg Law, Adams will be defended by Alex Spiro of the firm Quinn Emanuel – an attorney who’s risen to fame in recent years repping Elon Musk and other celebrity clients. Most recently, he won a manslaughter trial against Alec Baldwin over a shooting on the Rust movie set.
The case against Adams, unsealed on Thursday morning, features five federal charges related to bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy and soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals who were “seeking to gain influence over him.” The mayor has denied the allegations.
Spiro, one of Billboard’s Top Music Lawyers, is best known in the music industry for representing Jay-Z and his Roc Nation companies in a range of legal matters.
He handled the rapper’s years-long case over a cologne endorsement deal that went bad, eventually beating a demand for $67 million in damages and actually winning the superstar $7 million in unpaid royalties. Spiro also helped Jay-Z, Meek Mill and other stars pen an open letter in support of legislation that would ban prosecutors from using rap lyrics as evidence in criminal cases.
He’s currently working on complicated litigation over the looming auction of Damon Dash’s stake in Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Records, filing a motion as recently as this week over the rights to the rapper’s iconic debut album Reasonable Doubt.
Another prominent music client for Spiro is Megan Thee Stallion. He repped her for years in contentious litigation against her former record label 1501 Certified Entertainment, in which she claimed she had been duped into signing an “unconscionable” record deal as a young artist.
Spiro is known as an uncompromising litigator who will aggressively defend his clients’ interests, including outside the courtroom. Amid the Megan Thee Stallion case, he told Billboard in a 2022 interview that her record deal amounted to “indentured servitude” for the superstar: “We’re going to very aggressively take depositions, seek accounting for all the money they sucked out of this, and end it once and for all,” Spiro said at the time.
He also represented Megan in her role as a victim and witness the trial of Tory Lanez, who was convicted in 2022 of shooting the star in the foot during a 2020 argument. When defense attorneys opened that trial by arguing that the case was really about “jealousy,” Spiro didn’t mince words in an interview with ABC News: “It’s obviously absurd and an attempt at distraction. [Tory Lanez] shot her and that’s what the case is about.”
In a widely circulated statement on the Adams indictment on Thursday, Spiro assumed that same aggressive posture for his new client: “Federal agents appeared this morning at Gracie Mansion in an effort to create a spectacle (again) and take Mayor Adams phone (again),” Spiro said, as reported by Bloomberg. “He has not been arrested and looks forward to his day in court.“
Other music industry clients for Spiro have included 21 Savage, who he repped following his 2019 detainment by U.S. immigration authorities; Bobby Shmurda, who he defended in his 2016 murder conspiracy case; and a memorabilia auction house called Gotta Have Rock and Roll, who he represented in a recent dispute with the Michael Jackson estate.