A judge on Wednesday dismissed federal corruption charges against Eric Adams, ending the first criminal case against a New York City mayor in modern history underscoring how President Trump’s Justice Department is using prosecutorial power to advance his agenda.
In his ruling, the judge, Dale E. Ho of Federal District Court in Manhattan, refused to allow the government to keep open the option of reinstating the charges, as Mr. Trump’s Justice Department had sought. Justice Department officials had said that the prosecution was hindering Mr. Adams’s assistance with the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans.
“Everything here smacks of a bargain: Dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions,” the judge wrote in his 78-page decision.
Even so, his decision to let the Justice Department drop the case underscores the remarkable power that Mr. Trump’s administration has to terminate prosecutions, regardless of the rationale. The decision abruptly ended the long-running case, which had originally been set for trial this month.
It was also the culmination of a bitter clash between the federal prosecutors who indicted Mr. Adams and the Justice Department officials who worked to kill the case. That fight, in which both sides accused each other of ethical misconduct, left Mr. Adams deeply damaged as he faces a steep uphill climb for re-election this year.
Judge Ho in his opinion roundly rejected the Justice Department’s claims that the case had been brought for political reasons by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. “There is no evidence — zero — that they had any improper motives,” he wrote.
The Justice Department had moved to dismiss the charges against the mayor after the prosecutors who brought the indictment refused. One of the department’s highest-ranking officials offered the highly unusual justification, arguing that the case was compromising Mr. Adams’s ability to further the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
“The record does not show that this case has impaired Mayor Adams in his immigration enforcement efforts,” Judge Ho wrote. Instead, he said, after Justice Department officials sought dismissal of the case, the mayor took at least one new immigration action that was in line with the administration’s polices.
The judge said that granting the government’s request to dismiss the charges without prejudice, which would have allowed it to bring them again, “would create the unavoidable perception that the mayor’s freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration, and that he might be more beholden to the demands of the federal government than to the wishes of his own constituents.”
Mr. Adams was indicted last year on five counts, including bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. He had pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
Once the indictment was returned in September, the prosecution was pursued aggressively by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan. But after the change in presidential administrations, the Trump Justice Department reversed course, ordering prosecutors to seek the charges’ dismissal.
Danielle R. Sassoon, the interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan, refused to obey the order and resigned, and a spate of resignations in New York and Washington followed. Justice Department officials, including Emil Bove III, then the acting deputy attorney general, ended up filing the motion themselves.
Judge Ho’s ruling was in line with a recommendation by a court-appointed legal expert, Paul D. Clement, a conservative lawyer who had argued that the mayor’s case should be ended with prejudice, meaning that the charges could not be brought again.
“A dismissal without prejudice creates a palpable sense that the prosecution outlined in the indictment and approved by a grand jury could be renewed, a prospect that hangs like the proverbial sword of Damocles over the accused,” Mr. Clement wrote in a March 7 court filing.
William K. Rashbaum is a Times reporter covering municipal and political corruption, the courts and broader law enforcement topics in New York. More about William K. Rashbaum
Benjamin Weiser is a Times reporter covering the federal courts and U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, and the justice system more broadly. More about Benjamin Weiser
Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in the New York region for The Times. He is focused on political influence and its effect on the rule of law in the area’s federal and state courts. More about Jonah E. Bromwich
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