Dale E. Ho, the federal judge presiding over Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption case, has called on the prosecution to appear in court to explain their decision to drop the charges against him. The move comes after three former federal prosecutors filed a brief with court asking the judge to look into whether the Justice Department was acting in the public interest when dismissing the case against Adams or if it was, as has been alleged, a pretext for securing cooperation with him on policy, namely Trump’s mass deportation plan. Both Adams’ lawyers and the Justice attorneys must be in his courtroom at 2 p.m. Wednesday to address the matter.
Judge Ho has also received other communications attempting to sway his perspective regarding over either side of the case. On Monday, a letter from another former federal prosecutor –– Nathaniel Akerman, who now works for the good governance group Common Cause – recommended that he appoint a special prosecutor on the case in light of the “corrupt quid pro quo” that led to the Justice Department dropping the charges against Adams. On Tuesday, he received another letter from Adams’ defense attorney, Alex Spiro, pushing back against this characterization, saying “there was no quid pro quo. Period.”
In his order for the lawyers to appear in his court, Judge Ho did not appear to favor either side or lean on his authority to quash the dismissal, instead framing the situation as a fact-finding endeavor to inform his decision. “Since the court must exercise sound judicial discretion in considering a request for dismissal,” Ho wrote, “it must have sufficient factual information supporting the recommendation.”
Several federal prosecutors at the Southern District of New York and Washington D.C. resigned rather than follow through on orders to file the motion dismissing charges against Eric Adams. The first to do so was former acting U.S. Attorney for SDNY Danielle Sassoon, who claimed in her resignation letter that she had witnessed a meeting between DOJ officials and Adams’ attorneys where the latter had “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.” The order was eventually signed by Emil Bove, the acting deputy Attorney General of the United States, and Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer.
