An ‘impossible position’: What’s next for SDNY after order to drop Eric Adams case

To say that the order from Washington D.C. to drop corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams came as a shock would, perhaps, be an overstatement. 

Speculation that Adams – who in September pleaded not guilty to five counts including bribery and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations – could receive favorable treatment in the case from the Trump White House has been swirling for months. And following meetings in D.C. late last month with the U.S. Department of Justice, federal prosecutors and Adams’ defense attorneys, an intervention seemed possible, if not guaranteed.

But in both political and legal circles, a striking memo from the Justice Department’s number two official directing the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York to – temporarily, at least – abandon its case against Adams landed with a crash.

“I think part of what that memo is saying is ‘pens down,’” Jessica Lonergan, a former assistant U.S. Attorney at the Southern District said. “You don’t get to spend the next year strengthening your case against Adams, essentially.”

The memo from Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove directs the Southern District to request that the charges against Adams be dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning that they could be reconsidered – in this case, the memo specifies, after the November 2025 mayoral election. It adds that the DOJ arrived at its directive without assessing the evidence or legal theories involved, but rather based on two other considerations. 

That aspect of the memo was “extremely troubling,” said Carrie Cohen, a former state and federal prosecutor, who prosecuted public corruption cases in the Southern District. “As a prosecutor, your duty is to follow the facts wherever they lead, without fear or favor, and if the facts fit with the United States Code – the federal criminal law – and you believe you can prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, to bring that case to a grand jury. And the memo explicitly is directing the Southern District to make a prosecutorial decision not based on any of those principles.”

The reasons for dropping the charges cited in the memo included the idea Adams faced “prejudicial pretrial publicity” and that the case “unduly restricted” his ability to address illegal immigration and violent crime.

While former prosecutors said that charges being dropped is not without precedent – there are plenty of examples in the past five years – other aspects of Bove’s memo struck them as out of the ordinary, including that it appears to have instructions beyond just dropping the current charges. It says that Adams should not be targeted further and that no “additional investigative steps” should be pursued for the time being. “It would seem to stop any investigative steps as to crimes that are charged or uncharged as of yet, or even theoretically as to ongoing crimes,” said Kristin Mace, former chief of the criminal division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. “That seems pretty extraordinary.” 

U.S. Attorney’s Offices pride themselves as being able to, for the most part, separate from political considerations in D.C. But they still, critically, fall under the direction of Main Justice. Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. Attorney at the Southern District of New York – an office long seen as a particularly independent – doesn’t have many options to break ranks, at least not any good ones. If she found herself unable to request a dismissal, she could decline to do so and risk being fired, or resign. 

“She has been put in an essentially impossible position. But I’m sure she saw the writing on the wall given their meeting in D.C.,” Lonergan said, noting she didn’t have personal knowledge of Sassoon’s thinking. “So I don’t imagine this was a decision she just started thinking about yesterday.”

Asked about the memo and how the office would proceed, a spokesperson for the Southern District declined to comment.

If the prosecution submits a request to dismiss the charges, Judge Dale Ho, who has been presiding over USA v. Adams, has very limited ability not to accept it. What he can do, however, is hold a hearing and ask questions about why the case should be dropped, potentially creating a more thorough record of why Adams is being let off the hook for now, and if there are any conditions for keeping him off the hook.

Some legal observers have suggested that local prosecutors could pick up the investigation into Adams and his campaign fundraising. Based on the case laid out in the indictment, that could potentially include the Manhattan or Brooklyn district attorney’s offices. In order to share secret grand jury material with other prosecuting offices, the Southern District would have to actively request a sharing order approved by the court. It’s unclear if doing so would run afoul of the DOJ’s order to the Southern District to stop investigating the mayor.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Adams’ longtime righthand Ingrid Lewis-Martin on state bribery charges in a separate case in December, to which she pleaded not guilty.