Judge in NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ bribery case cancels mayor’s April trial, appoints special legal adviser to review case

The Manhattan federal judge presiding over the Eric Adams public corruption case canceled the mayor’s upcoming trial and appointed a veteran attorney as a special legal adviser on Friday to review the case and “advance the public interest in truth and fairness.”

District Court Judge Dale Ho adjourned Adams’ scheduled April trial without setting a new date but kept the pending charges against the mayor intact.

“Accordingly, to assist with its decision-making via an adversarial process, the Court exercises its inherent authority to appoint Paul Clement of Clement & Murphy PLLC as amicus curiae to present arguments on the Government’s Motion to Dismiss,” Ho wrote in his decision.

Clement, a Republican, served as solicitor general under former President George W. Bush.
Ho directed the parties to submit legal briefs by March 7 and set oral arguments for March 14.

The decision came two days after Ho, a former American Civil Liberties Union attorney, held a hearing to clarify the terms of the dismissal and to verify that Adams entered into the agreement without additional promises or threats.

Legal scholars, former prosecutors and a judge called on Ho to conduct a “searching inquiry” into allegations that a backroom agreement had been struck to drop the prosecution in exchange for allowing federal immigration enforcement in New York, a dramatic reversal from the city’s standing as a “sanctuary city” for foreign migrants.

Ho said that he had limited authority to deny the Justice Department’s request to end the case.
“I want to make sure that I consider everything appropriate, and that I don’t consider anything inappropriate,” he said at the hearing. “And make a reasoned decision that is mindful of my role, which I understand here is quite narrow.”

A Manhattan federal grand jury indicted the mayor in September on charges he solicited hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions from Turkish business people and a foreign public official. Prosecutors alleged that Adams sought and received more than $100,000 in luxury hotel stays and first-class airplane upgrades. In return, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office said, Adams, who was then still the Brooklyn Borough President, prodded the New York City Fire Department commissioner to clear the newly constructed 35-story Turkish consulate to open despite safety concerns from fire safety inspectors.

Additionally, the mayor allegedly hid election donations from foreign-born donors through straw donors in order to qualify for millions of dollars in matching funds through the city’s campaign finance system.

The mayor pleaded not guilty in September. His defense attorney Alex Spiro has not disputed the facts of the case, but defended the high-priced gifts as gratuities, not bribes.

The case threw Adams’ reelection campaign into turmoil amid a growing call for him to step down. He faces a crowded Democratic primary in June.

Trump has expressed solidarity with Adams over the mayor’s complaints to the Biden administration about the large influx of migrants into the city. The issue became a point of contention between the mayor and the former president. Adams went as far as to suggest that he was being prosecuted because of his criticism of Biden’s border policy.

Last, October at the annual Al Smith Dinner, a high-profile political event in the city, Trump offered that he and Adams had both been unfairly targeted by the Department of Justice.

“I know what it’s like to be persecuted by the D.O.J. for speaking out against open borders,” Trump said at the event. “We were persecuted, Eric. I was persecuted, and so are you, Eric.”
The president also publicly mused about granting Adams a pardon.

On Feb. 10, however, Trump’s former defense attorney, Emil Bove, now the acting deputy attorney general, the second in command at the Justice Department, ordered the interim

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon to drop the case to free the mayor to carry out the president’s border policy.

In his directive, Bove said that he had not reviewed the case on its merits and offered that local prosecutors could take up the case again in the future.

In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Sassoon refused to carry out Bove’s order, she said because she believed the mayor had committed the crimes charged and intended to update the indictment with additional charges.

She also detailed a Jan. 31, 2024 meeting at Justice Department Headquarters in which top officials negotiated an agreement to drop the charges in exchange for Adams’ agreement to carry out Trump’s immigration policies in New York, a “sanctuary city” that had previously resisted federal deportation efforts.

“Adams’s attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed,” Sassoon said in her letter.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Adams and his lawyer denied that there was any such deal.
Bove, showing some impatience with the judge’s inquiry, also refuted Sassoon’s allegations that there was a deal.

“You have a record undisputed that there is no quid pro quo,” Bove told the court.
Public statements in the press by Trump’s Border Czar Tom Homan, a former upstate New York police officer, seem to contradict that.

Homan and Adams met ahead of the announcement that the mayor would allow immigration enforcement on Rikers Island.

“If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City and we won’t be sitting on the couch, I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is this agreement we came to?” Homan said during a morning talk show appearance with the mayor on “Fox and Friends.”

Adams downplayed the statement as a joke between two former police officers and said that Homan had privately apologized for saying it.