Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption case got quashed Wednesday — with a federal judge ruling that tossing it for good ensures the Trump administration can’t hold the charges over Hizzoner’s head.
Judge Dale Ho dismissed the historic criminal case against Adams “with prejudice,” leaving him free to campaign for a second term without fearing that President Trump’s Department of Justice will revive the charges.
“As I have said all along, this case should have never been brought, and I did nothing wrong,” Adams declared on the steps of the official mayoral residence at Gracie Mansion.
Ho, in his hotly-anticipated ruling, blasted the DOJ for seemingly taking the brazen step of pushing for the case to be tossed in exchange for Adams’ help rolling out the White House’s aggressive immigration agenda.
“Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions,” he wrote in a 78-page ruling.
The judge specifically ripped the DOJ for arguing that the bribery and fraud charges should be dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning the case could be revived after November’s mayoral election.
That proposed setup “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.
Tossing the case for good “ensures that, going forward, the charges in the Indictment cannot be used as leverage over Mayor Adams or the City of New York,” the judge said.
Adams, who had pleaded not guilty and could have faced jail time if convicted, called the charges “baseless,” and urged New Yorkers to “turn the page.”
He held up a copy of FBI Director Kash Patel’s book, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” encouraging people to read it “and understand how we can never allow this to happen to another innocent American.”
The mayor and the Trump administration had denied allegations of a “quid pro quo” where Adams would help with immigration enforcement in exchange for feds getting his case dropped.
The Manhattan federal judge’s eagerly awaited decision followed a political firestorm ignited six weeks ago by the DOJ ordering prosecutors to drop the case against Adams.
In moving to dismiss the charges, then-Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said the decision was not based on the strength of the evidence, but rather that the case was stopping him from properly governing the city and from helping with Trump’s immigration plans.
Bove and current Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, both formerly Trump’s criminal defense lawyers, claimed without providing evidence that the case was a politically motivated prosecution brought by then-Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams, an appointee of former President Joe Biden.
Ho excoriated those claims in Wednesday’s ruling.
“The record before the Court indicates that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York prosecutors who worked on this case followed all appropriate Justice Department guidelines. There is no evidence —zero— that they had any improper motives,” the judge wrote.
He also noted that he did not have the power to force the DOJ to prosecute the case.
“To be clear, the Court again emphasizes that it does not express any opinion as to the merits of the case or whether the prosecution of Mayor Adams ‘should’ move forward,” Ho wrote. “The Court notes only that it has no authority to require that it continue.
“Ultimately, because the decision to discontinue a prosecution belongs primarily to a political branch of government, it is the public’s judgment, and not this Court’s, that truly matters,” his ruling states.
The mayor, a moderate Democrat, cozied up to the Republican president in the months after he was indicted in September 2024.
In February, Adams vowed to reopen a shuttered US Immigration and Customs Enforcement office at Rikers Island following a closed-door meeting with Trump’s border czar Tom Homan.
Gov. Kathy Hochul even opened the door to potentially removing the mayor from office, but eventually decided to keep him in City Hall despite a number of calls from those within their own party.
The wait for Ho’s ruling had many in Adams’ inner circle frustrated and anxious, especially as they argued he was unable to campaign in the upcoming June Democratic primary with the case hanging over his head.
“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 attorney 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.”
But the dismissal gives the mayor just under three months to hit the campaign trail, from which he’s been notably absent with his case looming, and convince voters he’s the right choice in the crowded field looking to run New York City.
Adams, a prolific campaigner, faces an uphill battle to unseat the current leader, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has led in every poll this year.
Those close to the mayor have voiced their frustration with how Bove handled the case and worry that the short time frame may not be enough to climb back up in the polls in the largely Democratic city while fighting off the perception that Adams has gotten close with Trump in recent months.
Adams was charged in a five-count indictment, including bribery and fraud, in September and had pleaded not guilty. He was accused of pocketing more than $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and travel perks from people seeking to buy influence with him, including a Turkish official.
Prosecutors had also been preparing an expanded indictment charging Adams with lying to the FBI and destroying evidence before the Justice Department offered its stunning reprieve.
The DOJ’s letter ordering federal prosecutors to drop the case sparked an exodus from the department and the Southern District of New York, which brought the case, including the interim head of the prestigious office, Danielle Sassoon, who raised the quid pro quo allegation in a searing resignation letter.
Ho tapped Republican lawyer Paul Clement, who served as US solicitor general under President George W. Bush, to help advise what his options were while faced with the legally obscure bid.
Clement advised the federal judge he had few avenues to go down, saying he had no power to name a special prosecutor and any attempt to keep such an appointment alive would be “futile.”
The conservative attorney wrote, however, that the judge could change the dismissal type to “with prejudice,” killing the case forever, and argued that would align more with the DOJ’s argument to remove all political “taint.”
“Even the appearance that the prospect of re-indictment would cause public officials to be more attendant to the executive branch than to constituents is deeply troubling and raises serious accountability concerns,” he wrote.
