A Manhattan judge on Friday dismissed a case against a Brooklyn real estate developer who was charged with bribing the former New York City buildings commissioner under the previous mayor, Eric Adams.
The case against the developer, Mark Caller, was one of five indictments in 2023 that charged the former commissioner, Eric Ulrich, with taking bribes in exchange for using his position in City Hall to help his friends and associates. The indictment against Mr. Ulrich that included Mr. Caller was dismissed. However, Mr. Ulrich is still facing felony charges in the other four cases.
According to prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Mr. Caller, who is the chief executive of the real estate firm the Marcal Group, used his relationship with Mr. Ulrich to influence the Department of City Planning to approve a zoning change for a project he owned and developed. Mr. Ulrich also used his position to connect Mr. Caller to other high-ranking officials to expedite requests, they said.
But in his decision on Friday, the judge overseeing the cases, Daniel Conviser, said that prosecutors, who had “extensive exculpatory evidence” about Mr. Caller’s relationship with Mr. Ulrich, did not present the “full story” to the grand jury that voted to indict the developer. In addition, there was no evidence of crimes that showed Mr. Caller had intended or tried to bribe Mr. Ulrich during the time in which the indictment accused the pair of being involved in a bribery scheme, the judge wrote.
“The grand jury, had they learned of Ulrich and Caller’s prior relationship, certainly might have determined not to indict the defendant under the legal standards outlined here,” Justice Conviser wrote.
The ruling by Justice Conviser is a rare step, but one that he said was the “proper remedy” given the circumstances. However, the judge wrote that he had not found that prosecutors had acted in bad faith. He said they had been “well-prepared, diligent and careful” and that out of the five indictments, “the court found four to be lawful and legally sufficient and this one to be invalid.”
Emily Tuttle, a spokeswoman for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, said the office respected the court’s decision and would “proceed with the four remaining indictments.”
Benjamin Brafman, a lawyer for Mr. Caller, said that the defense had “maintained from the outset from this grueling process that Mr. Caller was a scrupulously honest real estate developer who would never intentionally violate the law.”
“We have great respect for the wisdom and independence of Judge Conviser, who has seen the legal infirmity of this case and correctly decided to dismiss the indictment,” he said. “The process, however, has taken its toll, and sometimes, just the fact of being indicted often is enough to ruin someone’s reputation.”
Mr. Ulrich’s indictment was seen as one of the first legal dominoes to fall in Mr. Adams’s administration. Mr. Ulrich, a former city councilman, was appointed by Mr. Adams first as a senior adviser and then, in May 2022, as his buildings commissioner. He resigned six months later, after the investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office was reported.
In 2024, as several investigations swirled around those closest to him, Mr. Adams himself was indicted on federal charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, soliciting illegal foreign campaign contributions from foreign nationals and bribery. His was the first indictment of a sitting New York City mayor in modern history. Ultimately, the Justice Department abandoned the charges against him.
But his was not the only indictment that targeted the administration.
Mr. Adams’s chief adviser has been indicted five times by Mr. Bragg’s office. His liaison to the Muslim community pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiring to commit wire fraud. An accompanying avalanche of investigations into one of Mr. Adams’s police commissioners, his director of Asian affairs, his chief political fund-raiser and others, coupled with the mayor’s relationship with President Trump, spelled doom for Mr. Adams’s electoral prospects last year in New York City.
He was succeeded this year by Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who ran, in part, on ending an era of corruption in City Hall.
For Mr. Ulrich, the indictment dismissed on Friday included the accusations with the highest dollar values — in total, prosecutors said he had harvested more than $150,000 for himself. Throughout the five indictments, Mr. Ulrich had been accused of using his office’s influence in return for favors, including funds for gambling and a premium Mets season ticket package valued at nearly $10,000. In the indictment including Mr. Caller, prosecutors accused Mr. Ulrich of receiving a discounted apartment in a luxury beachfront building in Queens that the developer owned.
David Cohen, a lawyer for Mr. Ulrich, said that the indictment included “cherry-picked” details by prosecutors and that his client “has never accepted bribes, never would accept any bribes and stayed true to his oath of office.”
“We are thrilled for Mr. Caller and his business,” Mr. Cohen said. “And the judge’s decision highlighted the overreach by the government.”
Dana Rubinstein contributed reporting.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state courts.
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