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Both Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and NY Attorney General Tish James could pursue charges, and Gov. Hochul could also remove the mayor.
The Trump Justice Department filed a highly unusual motion to dismiss the criminal corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams on Friday, setting up a high-stakes showdown with the federal judge overseeing the case and heightening calls for other prosecutors or Gov. Kathy Hochul to act.
The filing by Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, came after Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon resigned Thursday rather than carry out the Justice Department’s edict. By Friday six other prosecutors in New York and Washington had also resigned after refusing to file the dismissal motion.
So Bove did the job himself on Valentine’s Day, arguing as he did in his original order to Sassoon that the decision to dismiss has nothing to do with the merits of the case and is instead intended to free up Mayor Adams to cooperate more fully with President Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts.
The motion now goes before the jurist overseeing the case, Manhattan Federal Judge Dale Ho, whose signature is required for the dismissal to take effect. If he were to reject the dismissal, the Justice Department would almost certainly appeal the decision.
Appointed by President Biden in 2022, Ho is a former director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)’s voting rights project and has argued twice against Trump immigration policies. In one case he successfully challenged the Trump team’s inclusion of a question on citizenship on the U.S. Census questionnaire.
Ho, whose nomination was attacked by conservative groups for social media posts he ultimately apologized for, can require the Justice Department lawyers to appear before him to explain their reasoning. As of Saturday morning he had not responded in any fashion to the dismissal filing.
Who Else Could Prosecute or Remove Adams?
The possibility of a judicial hearing is just one of many potential narratives that could unfold in the coming months that run contrary to Mayor Adams’ repeated insistence that the case is over, or as he asserted during a brief address Tuesday that he’s “no longer facing legal questions.”
In fact several other law enforcement agencies could act in the coming months as the mayor runs for re-election, especially in light of the fact that there are so many pending probes of Adams’top lieutenants.
On Friday the Rev. Al Sharpton, a longtime supporter of Adams who is now asserting that Trump has a “stranglehold” on the mayor, cited another option if Judge Ho grants the Trump Justice Department’s dismissal request: Gov. Kathy Hochul’s power to remove the mayor from office. “If the judge says that the charges are out, then you have an appeal to the governor because you can say the criminal justice system did not answer this.” Sharpton said in a statement to Politico.
Hochul initially rejected that idea but this week said she was re-considering her stance after Acting U.S. Attorney Sassoon, in her letter rejecting the dismissal order, asserted the dismissal in exchange for assistance on Trump’s immigration initiative “creates obvious ethical problems.”
Another potential source for a reconsideration of the federal case could come from Attorney General Letitia James. On Friday when she was asked about looking at the Adams case during an unrelated press conference, she responded “a number of discussions are going on” at both the state and local levels.
“I’m going to refrain from any comment until such time as we complete those discussions and determine the fate of the mayor of the city of New York,” she said.
Several former prosecutors interviewed by THE CITY, however, agreed that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has already indicted two of Adams’ top aides, is best suited to pursue a state version of the federal case.
In December Bragg announced the indictment of Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Mayor Eric Adams’ chief advisor, on charges of using her influence to aid two developers who’d provided her son with $100,000 so he could buy a Porsche. She pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.
In the fall of 2023, Bragg indicted Eric Ulrich, a former City Council member whom Adams’ appointed first as a senior advisor and then as buildings commissioner. Ulrich was charged with taking bribes including a discount apartment rental, cash and Mets tickets to expedite inspections for a developer and help a troubled tow truck firm get its license back.
In announcing the charges against Lewis-Martin, Bragg made a point of stating, “These charges do not allege any criminal conduct by Mayor Eric Adams. The Mayor is not a target of our investigation. We do not have evidence of criminal conduct by the Mayor.”
Weeks later, however, prosecutors in his office acknowledged during a court hearing that the probe of Lewis-Martin goes well beyond the initial charges in her indictment and involve a large quantity of phone and text communications. Whether those investigations come to implicate the mayor, therefore, remains an open question.
Bragg has been looking at Adams’ team since the day after Adams was elected in November 2021, when he began monitoring Ulrich’s activities. In September his office seized the phones of Lewis-Martin and another Adams appointee, Jesse Hamilton, a deputy commissioner in charge of the city’s leases, when they returned from a vacation in Japan. That investigation involves possible pay-to-play in the awarding of municipal leases overseen by Hamilton.
Daniel Horwitz, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, says all that gives Bragg “a head start,” along with the fact that Bragg partnered with the city Department of Investigation (DOI) on both the Ulrich and Lewis-Martin cases.
DOI, which has been involved in the federal investigation that led to Adams’ indictment from the beginning, is an independent agency that can subpoena documents and testimony, initiate search warrants and make criminal referrals to both state and federal prosecutors.
Horwitz points out that a number of New York statutes regarding bribery and campaign finance fraud could be brought to bear to address the allegations outlined in the federal indictment if it’s dismissed.
“Certainly open an investigation to determine whether a state law was violated,” Horwitz, a partner at Tannenbaum Helpern, said. “New York has a variety of public corruption statutes that are aimed at the kind of allegations that the Southern District brought. Given the seriousness of the allegations and the alleged breach of trust, a local prosecutor will certainly give the case a serious look.”
He noted that there are state versions of the bribery and campaign finance fraud charges cited in the federal indictment, and a district attorney with jurisdiction could readily jump into the mosh pit and kickstart a case.
And there are at least five other ongoing investigations, either federal or state, into possible corruption by at least five more top Adams’ aides that appear to be continuing apace.
Besides Lewis-Martin and Hamilton, there’s First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, her husband, schools chancellor David Banks, his brother, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks, senior mayoral aide Timothy Pearson, and Winnie Greco, Adams’ liaison to the Asian community. All had their electronic devices seized by the feds and later resigned. Greco’s homes were raided by the FBI.
To date none of these investigations have been directly tied to Adams, although the Greco inquiry, led by the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office, could well wind up taking a closer look at her involvement in several fundraisers she orchestrated during Mayor Adams 2021 and 2025 campaigns. THE CITY has documented some of these events likely involved arranging illegal straw donations used to obtain public matching funds, the same phenomenon found in the Manhattan federal case.
All of these investigations appear to be active, so it’s not impossible that the mayor himself could ultimately be implicated in a separate scheme.
Not So Easy for Bragg
There are complicating factors.
In his original memo Monday ordering the dismissal, Deputy Attorney General Bove declared “there shall be no further targeting or additional investigative steps” related to Adams’ case. The case technically remains open, filed as “withdrawn without prejudice,” with Bove instructing the next Manhattan U.S. attorney to review the case again after the November election with the possibility of re-indicting Adams.
But several former prosecutors interviewed by THE CITY who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the no-additional investigative steps restriction appears only to apply to the specific accusations charged in Adams’ indictment: obtaining illegal straw donations and $120,000 in travel perks (some from sources connected to the Turkish government) in exchange for helping the Turkish government overcome New York City bureaucratic obstacles.
If Bragg or any one of New York City’s four other district attorneys were to pursue a state version of the federal case against the mayor, they would have to start more or less from scratch, convening a grand jury to hear whatever evidence gathered by the feds they deemed would apply to a violation of state law.
That could involve recalling the same witnesses the feds relied on, bringing in the same cooperating witnesses (if they agree to continue to cooperate), obtaining new search warrants and subpoenas to gather electronic evidence (texts, voicemails, emails) and paper records (campaign finance documents, for example).
Horwitz pointed out that state laws could readily address the allegations in the federal indictment that Adams’ solicited and accepted illegal donations, then falsely stated these donations were legitimate to obtain $10 million in matching public funds from the city Campaign Finance Board, the feds alleged. The CFB has already threatened to claw back that money because of the allegations outlined in the federal indictment.
“If you’re looking at campaign finance violations that enabled the mayor to obtain public funding, there’s a theory that it’s larceny by false representation, which is a separate crime,” Horwitz noted. “Also you have [state] charges that are uniquely local: Offering a false instrument.”
Charging a state version of bribery, on the other hand, could be more challenging. Daniel Alonso, a former federal and state prosecutor, recently examined the Adams’ case in the New York State Bar Association’s Journal, where he noted, “New York bribery requires a mutual agreement between the bribe-giver and public official or at least a unilateral belief by the bribe-giver that the bribe will in fact influence the public official.”
In the federal case, Adams’ lawyer, Alex Spiro, has argued there was no such explicit agreement, while the federal prosecutors contended individuals aligned with the Turkish government provided Adams with travel perks and arranged illegal donations for his campaign in the belief that he would then return the favor through actions that were not spelled out.
In the Bar Association piece, Alonso noted that Adams was receiving free hotel stays and expensive business class upgrades for international travel for several years while he was Brooklyn borough president but wasn’t asked to do anything until just after he won the June 2021 primary and before he became mayor.
Adams’ lawyer Spiro, he noted, tried to get Judge Ho to toss the bribery count, arguing that the perks Adams received were a “mere gratuity,” and thus not a pre-arranged bribe. A Supreme Court decision last year allows for gratuities to public officials after actions to the donors’ benefit.
Ho rejected Spiro’s argument, contending that it was a question for a jury to decide. But Alonso portrayed the bribery question as complicated, writing that a bribery count “would likely have trouble in a New York (state) courtroom.”
What Can Tish James Do?
Another option is action from Attorney General James, who has not yet publicly declared her intentions regarding the mayor. One possible entry point for James to address the federal indictment’s allegation that Adams’ used illegal campaign donations to claim matching public funds would involve citing the obscure New York False Claims Act.
That law would allow James as attorney general to sue someone who “knowingly presents, or causes to be presented a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval.” James has used the law in the past to recoup $17 million for home health aides defrauded by their employers, and $6 million from the auction house Sotheby’s for tax fraud.
Attorney Gregory Krakower, a former top lawyer in the attorney general’s office who drafted the current law, said while he was unaware of any uses of the law to enforce the state’s campaign finance law, it would be legally defensible.
“If the attorney general determines that someone may have knowingly defrauded the NYC public finance system — whether a campaign, a campaign vendor, or an individual donor or bundler — then the Attorney General can investigate and has a very powerful tool and civil remedy to hold them accountable,” Krakower said.
A spokesperson for James didn’t return THE CITY’s request for comment on the use of the False Claims Act.
Regardless of who pursues a case against Adams post-dismissal, former ADA Horwitz said somebody needs to step up.
“There’s no question that there would be challenges in trying to resurrect the case in the state system, but those are challenges that should be worked through because the allegations involve violation of the public trust by an elected official,” he said.
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