A controversial Manhattan lawyer — who once had his license suspended for telling a tenant to “commit suicide” — has sparked a state investigation after he claimed to have given the judge in Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial unsolicited advice.
Adam Leitman Bailey — who had his law license suspended for four months in 2019 over the caught-on-tape tirade — claimed to NBC New York that he spoke with Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron about the case three weeks before the judge issued his $455 million ruling against Trump in February.
“I actually had the ability to speak to him three weeks ago,” Bailey told the outlet in a Feb. 16 interview. “I saw him in the corner [at the courthouse] and I told my client, ‘I need to go.’ And I walked over and we started talking … I wanted him to know what I think and why … I really want him to get it right.”
The conversation sparked a probe by the New York judicial watchdog organization, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, a source told NBC New York.
A judge can’t “initiate, permit, or consider” communications about cases outside the presence of all parties in the matter.
A judge can “obtain the advice of a disinterested expert,” as long as the parties are told ahead of time and are given the chance to respond, according to the state rules on judicial conduct.
Bailey said he told Engoron his opinion on the fraud statute at the center of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ case against Trump.
The real estate lawyer claimed he “explained” to the judge that he didn’t believe the statute could be used to take a major company, such as the Trump Organization, out of business, particularly if the case didn’t have obvious victims.
“He had a lot of questions, you know, about certain cases. We went over it,” he said of Engoron.
Al Baker, a spokesman with the state courts, denied to NBC that Engoron and Bailey had a conversation about the case.
“No ex parte conversation concerning this matter occurred between Justice Engoron and Mr. Bailey or any other person,” Baker said in a statement to the outlet.
“The decision Justice Engoron issued February 16 was his alone, was deeply considered, and was wholly uninfluenced by this individual.”
The SCJC couldn’t confirm whether there was a probe into the exchange because of confidentiality.
“The [SCJC] is constrained by a strict confidentiality statute and has no comment on the matter,” SCJC Administrator Robert Tembeckjian said in a statement.
Bailey has admitted he doesn’t support Trump and said he’s sued the real estate mogul in the past.
He is not connected to any of the cases currently surrounding the ex-president, but has given multiple interviews offering legal commentary to various media outlets in the wake of Engoron’s decision.
As for Bailey’s connection to the judge, he has been on cases before Engoron “hundreds of times,” he told NBC.
In a second interview with NBC, Bailey doubled down on his story about chatting with Engoron — but seemed to hedge by claiming the two didn’t specifically mention the Trump case and were merely talking generally about the law.
“We didn’t even mention the word Donald Trump,” Bailey claimed to the outlet, according to an article published Wednesday.
“Well, obviously we weren’t talking about the Mets,” he added, seemingly implying he believed Engoron knew what they were referring to.
Bailey maintained neither of them broke any rules.
The 45th president and his lawyers have said they plan to appeal Engoron’s ruling.
Trump’s lawyer Chris Kise said if it’s true Engoron discussed the case with Bailey it would “call into question the integrity of the entire case and further undermine public confidence in a New York legal system already the subject of international ridicule.”
Kise also said if the claims are true he believes the judge may have had such conversations more than once.
The lawyer called for Engoron to recuse himself and called for a probe into all the judge’s email and cell communications and all communications of everyone else involved in the case.
“If true, there is simply no reason to believe this was an isolated incident,” Kise said. “Any judge willing to engage in this sort of exchange and willing to simply disregard clear rules of conduct would likely have done so repeatedly over the long course of the case.”
In 2017, Bailey was caught on tape telling a tenant of a building owned by a company that Bailey repped, “Now you’re my b—h” and “I think you should commit suicide” in a $25 million lawsuit launched by the tenant, James Dawson.
Dawson’s case was tossed in 2018, but the incident was referred to the Attorney Grievance Committee and an appeals court suspended Bailey’s license for four months.
The ruling noted Bailey had “twice previously been admonished by the AGC for inappropriate litigation behavior.”
Baker, the spokesman for the state courts system, declined to comment to The Post. Bailey didn’t return a request for comment Thursday.
