DOJ Asks Judge to Dismiss Charges Against NYC Mayor Adams

Mayor Eric Adams speaks during State of the City address in New York on Jan. 9, 2025. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Feb. 14 formally asked a judge to dismiss federal charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Federal prosecutors in a filing with the federal court in southern New York said that the DOJ is requesting that the court enter an order of nolle prosequi, or dismissal of the charges.

U.S. District Judge Dale Ho still must sign off on the request.

DOJ officials Antoinette T. Bacon and Edward Sullivan signed the filing.

They pointed to how acting Deputy U.S. Attorney General Emil Bove, the DOJ’s second-in-command, recently directed prosecutors to dismiss the charges against Adams, including accepting illegal campaign contributions.

Bove said the timing of the charges, brought in late 2024, and statements made by prosecutors “have threatened the integrity of the proceedings, including by increasing prejudicial pretrial publicity.”

Continuing to prosecute Adams, Bove said, would restrict the mayor’s ability to help the administration of President Donald Trump combat illegal immigration and crime in the city.

Bove is a former lawyer of the president and worked at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York until 2021.

Then-interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon responded in a letter on Wednesday, saying she would not follow Bove’s order.

“Because the law does not support a dismissal, and because 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,” then-interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon wrote to Bove.

Sassoon then resigned.

John Keller, acting head of the DOJ’s public corruption unit, and Kevin Driscoll, a senior official in the DOJ’s criminal division, also stepped down, according to the DOJ.

The DOJ did not provide a reason for the two resignations. Keller declined to comment. Driscoll could not be reached.

Hagan Scotten, a New York-based prosecutor who worked on the case, stepped down on Friday, telling Bove in a missive that there was no valid reason to justify dismissing the charges and that he would never comply with the order to do so.

Sassoon also said in her letter to Bove that prosecutors were prepared to seek a new indictment accusing Adams of destroying evidence and directing others to do so.

Adams’s lawyer Alex Spiro said via email that if the prosecutor’s office “had any proof whatsoever that the mayor destroyed evidence, they would have brought those charges—as they continually threatened to do, but didn’t, over months and months.”

Reuters contributed to this report.