Mayor Eric Adams strenuously denied sexually assaulting a colleague in 1993 after asking her for a sexual favor, saying on Tuesday that the accusation made by a former colleague was completely false.
“This did not happen — it did not happen,” Mr. Adams said in his first remarks since the detailed allegations emerged in a legal claim filed on Monday. “I don’t recall ever meeting this person during my time in the Police Department.”
The lawsuit was filed in New York Supreme Court as part of the state’s Adult Survivors Act, which provided a window for people to bring lawsuits over sexual assaults that might have occurred years ago.
A woman claimed that Mr. Adams requested oral sex from her in exchange for career help when they worked together at New York City’s Transit Police Department. When she refused, he forced her to touch his penis and ejaculated on her, the complaint said.
At his weekly news conference, Mr. Adams did not take long to address the accusations, bringing them up before being asked about it.
He repeated his motto — “stay focused, no distractions and grind” — and said he had always carried himself “with a level of dignity” that New Yorkers expect.
“I know how I live my life,” the mayor said, adding: “I have been an extremely respectable public person.”
Asked how he could avoid having the allegations end his political career, Mr. Adams said that New Yorkers would make their own determinations about the allegations. He said he was focused on running the city and confident that he would have a strong legacy.
The lawsuit is the latest legal complication confronting Mr. Adams as he prepares to run for re-election next year. In November, F.B.I. agents searched the home of his chief fund-raiser and seized Mr. Adams’s electronic devices as part of an investigation into whether his campaign conspired with the Turkish government to accept illegal foreign donations.
Mr. Adams, a Democrat, said that he was sorry that his partner, Tracey Collins, and his son, Jordan Coleman, were “going through this” and that Ms. Collins had encouraged him to be disciplined and “don’t allow your emotions to get in the way.”
The city’s corporation counsel, Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix, who is representing the mayor in the lawsuit, interrupted the news conference at least twice to say that she and the mayor were not responding to details in the lawsuit and that she would prefer that Mr. Adams not give his opinions on the case.
The lawsuit said that the plaintiff, an administrative aide at the Transit Police Department, asked Mr. Adams for help after she had been passed over for a promotion. Mr. Adams drove her to a vacant lot and requested a “quid pro quo sexual favor” before he “forcibly pushed” her hand on to his penis, according to the 26-page complaint.
The plaintiff felt particularly fearful because she believed that Mr. Adams, as a police officer, had a loaded gun in the car, the complaint said.
“The effects of that sexual assault, betrayal and astonishing abuse of power, continue to haunt plaintiff to this day,” the complaint said.
On Tuesday, Mr. Adams was careful not to question the credibility of the plaintiff. But the mayor’s office on Monday night sent statements from four women who criticized the lawsuit and raised questions about past lawsuits filed by the plaintiff.
Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar, a frequently quoted supporter of the mayor, cited her background as a lawyer to shape her opinion that the lawsuit had no merit.
“As a lawyer who has dedicated a significant portion of her career to class action cases on behalf of women experiencing discrimination in the workplace,” Ms. Rajkumar said, “I know that every year the American justice system experiences a significant number of frivolous lawsuits such as this one.”
After the news conference on Tuesday, the mayor’s office sent two more statements, including one from Hazel Dukes, president of the N.A.A.C.P. New York State Conference, who said that “the outrageous claims made against him cannot possibly be true,” adding that “he has the full support of me and many others.”
Mr. Adams said he was “inundated” with phone calls of support on Monday and he thanked the women for their support. The mayor’s office has said that it was appropriate for Ms. Hinds-Radix to represent Mr. Adams because the case related to his time as a city employee, though some have expressed concerns about the arrangement.
