Attorneys for New York City Mayor Eric Adams asked a federal judge Wednesday for an outright dismissal of his criminal corruption case, citing alleged misconduct by prosecutors.
Adams’ lawyers cited a leaked letter from the former acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon to Attorney General Pam Bondi in mid-February.
The letter contained a statement about Adams’ alleged guilt, the intention to file new charges against him, and the suggestion the Department of Justice had engaged in a quid pro quo with the mayor to dismiss the case.
Sassoon was one of at least seven federal prosecutors who resigned rather than follow the DOJ’s order to request a dismissal of the case without prejudice, which would allow the DOJ to refile charges if it saw fit.
“To be sure, the February 12 letter, and the decision to leak it, were last acts of desperation in defense of a meritless case that never should have been pursued in the first place,” wrote Adams’ lawyers Alex Spiro and William Burck in their filing in Manhattan federal court.
If Judge Dale Ho dismisses Adams’ indictment “with prejudice,” as the mayor wants, it would bar the DOJ from refiling criminal charges related to the same allegations in the future.
Ho has yet to rule on the DOJ’s request that the case be dismissed without prejudice.
Last week, he appointed an outside lawyer to research the standards to determine whether the case should be dismissed at all, and if so whether the case should be dismissed with or without prejudice,
The filing Wednesday by Adams’ lawyers says that in her letter Sassoon disclosed her “self-proclaimed confidence in Mayor Adams’s guilt.”
Sassoon also told Bondi that her office was “planning to re-indict Mayor Adams, including on a new and equally baseless obstruction charge,” the filing noted.
It also included “the wildly inflammatory and false accusation that Mayor Adams and his counsel had, in essence, offered a quid to the Department of Justice in exchange for the quo of dismissal,” the filing said.
The quid pro quo that Sasson was referring to was the idea that Adams had agreed to comply with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies in New York City in exchange for the case being dismissed.
Adams and his lawyers have denied there was such an agreement.
Adams’ lawyers wrote that the day after Sassson sent the letter, it was leaked to the media by “someone in the government … continuing the trend that has plagued this investigation and now prosecution for over a year.”
“The letter contained a number of false and inflammatory statements that have irreparably prejudiced Mayor Adams,” the filing says.
“The most appropriate recourse is to dismiss this case now and do so with prejudice,” defense lawyers wrote.
“That is true based on this latest leak alone and independent of the fact that the government itself wants nothing to do with these meritless charges and has moved to dismiss them.”
CNBC has requested comment from the DOJ on the new filing.