close
close

Eric Adams says Rikers would be ‘ready’ if Trump jailed over SLAPP

Eric Adams says Rikers would be ‘ready’ if Trump jailed over SLAPP

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) said Tuesday that the notorious Rikers Island jail would be “ready” for former President Trump if he was sentenced to prison for violating a restraining order. silence during his criminal trial for secret money.

Adams said the city Department of Corrections “is prepared to deal with whatever might happen at Rikers Island,” comparing the potential of detaining a prominent person like Trump with film producer and sex criminal Harvey Weinstein.

“We have to adapt, you know – in this business, especially when it comes to law enforcement, we have to adapt to whatever comes at us,” he said at a conference on Tuesday Press. “But we don’t want to deal with a hypothesis. They are professionals, they will be ready.

Trump has been found in violation of a silence order on his speech 10 times during two hearings of the ongoing trial, with Judge Juan Merchan threatening Trump with prison time if he continues to discuss details or make making disparaging remarks about witnesses and other legal figures in public. comments.

The former president has already been fined $10,000 for violations in the case, in which he is accused of falsifying business records to cover up an alleged affair dating back a decade earlier, in the weeks before the 2016 elections.

The judge told Trump on Monday that “the last thing I want to do is put you in jail,” but “at the end of the day, I have a job to do.”

“Your continued violations constitute a direct attack on the rule of law,” Merchan said.

Prosecutors have said they are not seeking to put Trump behind bars for the violations.

Trump harshly criticized Merchan’s silence order and those he received from judges in his other cases, saying they violate his First Amendment rights to respond to political attacks, as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee becomes the first former US president to face a criminal trial.

For the latest news, weather, sports and streaming videos, visit The Hill.