Former city Buildings Commissioner Eric Ulrich — the one-time top adviser to Mayor Adams accused of lining his pockets with $150,000 in bribes — on Wednesday told a judge he could no longer afford a lawyer.
At a brief hearing, defense attorney Sam Braverman asked to be relieved from the case and said Ulrich did not have the funds to replace him.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Daniel Conviser asked Ulrich, 39, if he had any money to pay a new attorney.
“No, your honor,” Ulrich said.
Conviser said he would find an attorney to appoint to the case and asked Braverman to continue repping Ulrich in the meantime.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office filed charges against the Republican ex-Council member in September 2023, alleging that between January 2021 and November 2022, he brazenly exploited several government positions — city councilmember, senior adviser to Adams, and Adams’ building boss — by lining his pockets with bribes from his buddies.
He’s pleaded not guilty to a slew of felonies across five indictments, including conspiracy, receiving bribes, offering a false instrument for filing, and related counts.
Accused alongside Ulrich in the indictments are Queens businessmen and brothers Joseph and Anthony Livreri; Brooklyn real estate developer Mark Caller; tow truck magnate Michael Mazzio; Paul Grego, a former filing representative for the Buildings Departments; and Victor Truta, a former city corrections officer. They have all pleaded not guilty and are due back in court in January.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office alleges the former career politician promised the men favors — like hooking their relatives up with well-paying gigs in government, expediting inspections for their businesses, or attempting to hire and reassign DOB personnel who would work in their favor — in exchange for a range of lavish gifts, like $10,000 season tickets to The Mets, cash for gambling, and even a painting by Salvador Dalí’s sole living protégé, Francisco Poblet.
Prosecutors allege Ulrich, who has acknowledged struggling with addictions to gambling and alcohol, spent much of his bribe money at the 89th Street Café in Ozone Park — home to an illegal gambling den owned by Joseph Livreri, who allegedly acted as a go-between for him and his co-conspirators and was a constituent services staffer in his office. Livreri was fired from his City Council job in August 2023.
Ulrich, who declined to comment Wednesday, resigned in late 2022 while prosecutors were investigating him.
Last year, the Daily News reported that Ulrich told investigators he first learned he might be in trouble after a conversation with Mayor Adams in May 2022, shortly after he’d tapped him to be his buildings boss. Adams allegedly told Ulrich to “watch your back and watch your phones.”
Adams denies the encounter and has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the case.