New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams leaves the USA District Court docket for the Southern District of New York, U.S., February 19, 2025.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
A federal choose on Wednesday dismissed the prison corruption case towards New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams, practically two months after the Trump administration controversially sought to drop the case.
The case was dismissed “with prejudice,” which suggests the Division of Justice is completely barred from resurrecting the five-count indictment towards Adams primarily based on the identical proof used within the case in U.S. District Court docket in Manhattan.
The DOJ initially requested District Court docket Choose Dale Ho to toss the case “with out prejudice,” after seven federal prosecutors stop in protest over the division’s demand that they file that request.
A dismissal with out prejudice would have allowed the DOJ to refile costs towards the Democrat sooner or later if the division selected to take action.
Ho, in his order on Wednesday, denied the DOJ’s request, writing that dismissing the case with out prejudice “would create the unavoidable notion that the Mayor’s freedom is determined by his capability to hold out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration.
The choose additionally stated it will create the notion that Adams, who’s looking for re-election this 12 months, “may be extra beholden to the calls for of the federal authorities than to the needs of his personal constituents.”
“That look is inevitable, and it counsels in favor of dismissal with prejudice,” Ho wrote.
The choose famous that Adams requested a dismissal with prejudice, and that the DOJ had not opposed that movement, “successfully waiving any objection to everlasting dismissal of this case.”
Adams, who’s a former New York Metropolis police officer, was indicted in September on costs accusing him of a decade-long marketing campaign contribution scheme, bribery and different allegations.
The indictment accused Adams of accepting unlawful donations to his 2021 mayoral marketing campaign and of accepting free luxurious journey way back to 2016, when he was the Brooklyn borough president.
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