New York Mayor Eric Adams' corruption case dismissed by federal judge; Mayor says 'I did nothing wrong'

A Manhattan federal judge has dismissed the public corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams with prejudice, preventing the U.S. Department of Justice from bringing the same charges against him in the future.

The 78-page decision by U.S. District Judge Dale Ho caps a decadelong investigation into Adams, who was charged with soliciting foreign donations from Turkish businesspeople and a public official since 2014, when he was still the Brooklyn borough president.

“My fellow New Yorkers, today finally marks the end of this chapter,” Adams said Wednesday afternoon outside Gracie Mansion, the mayoral residence. “This case should have never been brought and I did nothing wrong.”

He walked away without taking questions from shouting reporters.

“The case against Eric Adams should have never been brought in the first place — and finally today that case is gone forever," the mayor's lawyer, Alex Spiro, said in a statement. "From Day 1, the mayor has maintained his innocence and now justice for Eric Adams and New Yorkers has prevailed.”

Ho said his decision was consistent with the limited authority the court has over whether or not the case should proceed. The judge said he would not opine on the merits of the case. But he picked apart the Department of Justice’s arguments for dismissing the case piece by piece in a blistering opinion in which he called out the department, saying their arguments were essentially baseless.

And he was clear about why he was ruling the charges couldn't be brought again.

“Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the Indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions,” Ho wrote. “DOJ’s assertion that it has ‘virtually unreviewable’ license to dismiss charges on this basis is disturbing in its breadth, implying that public officials may receive special dispensation if they are compliant with the incumbent administration’s policy priorities. That suggestion is fundamentally incompatible with the basic promise of equal justice under law.”

"There may or may not be good reasons to drop this prosecution," Ho wrote in his opinion. "But the reasons articulated by DOJ, if taken at face value, are inconsistent with a decision to leave the charges in the indictment hanging like the proverbial Sword of Damocles over the mayor."

On Feb. 10, top-ranking Justice Department official Emil Bove, who represented President Donald Trump in his hush money trial, directed Manhattan’s U.S. Attorney's Office to drop the case without prejudice — allowing the president’s incoming appointee to the office to review the charges and bring them again if they saw fit.

Bove argued the case, brought nine months before the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, amounted to election interference.

But the judge said the argument "lacks any support in Justice Department guidelines or past practice,” and suggested Justice Department officials were being insincere.

“In fact, the timing of this case is entirely consistent with prior public corruption prosecutions," Ho wrote. "All of this suggests that the 'appearances of impropriety' rationale is not just thin, but pretextual.”

Bove had also argued for dismissal because he said the former U.S. attorney, Damian Williams, had brought the case out of political ambitions to boost his profile.

Ho also rejected that claim.

“There is no evidence — zero — that they had any improper motives,” he said, noting the investigation began before Williams was appointed.

The Justice Department was unpersuaded by the judge's decision.

“This case was an example of political weaponization and a waste of resources. We are focused on arresting and prosecuting terrorists while returning the Department of Justice to its core mission of keeping Americans safe,” Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said in an email Wednesday.

Bove had said the pending case interfered with Adams’ ability to carry out his duties fighting crime and carrying out Trump’s recent crackdown on immigration.

The judge noted Adams had recently allowed federal immigration officials onto Rikers Island, a possible violation of city law.

“In other words, the record does not show that this case has impaired Mayor Adams in his immigration enforcement efforts,” the judge wrote.

Ho called the Justice Department's rationale "troubling."

The effort to drop the Adams case had sent shock waves through the legal community, and observers noted it undermined the tradition of independence of Manhattan’s U.S. Attorney’s Office. Former interim U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon resigned rather than comply with Bove's directive to drop the case.

“I am confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged, I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations,” Sassoon wrote to Attorney General Pamela Bondi in her resignation letter. Six other Justice Department officials resigned as well over the effort to drop the case.

New York Law School Professor Rebecca Roiphe said leaving the option to bring the case again in the future, as the Justice Department requested, amounted to “extortion.”

The judge seemed to agree.

“In light of DOJ’s rationales, dismissing the case without prejudice 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,” Ho wrote in his decision.

The five-count indictment against Adams charged that not only did he receive and solicit illegal foreign donations, but he offered his influence over city fire department officials to open the new 36-floor Turkish consulate in midtown, despite outstanding safety issues. The bribery charge was the least of the alleged crimes. Prosecutors also say Adams hid the source of the foreign money through straw donors and then they allege he used those fake names to qualify for millions of dollars in public matching funds through the city's campaign finance system.

The political fallout from the charges has been devastating for the mayor's reelection campaign. A March Quinnipiac poll shows Adams trailing the front-runner, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, by 20 points. He's also seen an exodus of support from Black political leaders and labor unions.

With Matthew Chayes