Eric Adams' case indefinitely adjourned by judge following DOJ request

A federal judge has indefinitely adjourned New York City Mayor Eric Adams' fraud criminal trial, but has not yet dismissed the case after last week's request from the Department of Justice.

"In light of the Government's motion and the representations of the parties during the conference, it is clear that trial in this matter will not go forward on April 21," U.S. District Judge Dale Ho wrote Friday.

Ho adjourned the case against Adams indefinitely but decided to leave in place the federal corruption indictment hanging over the head of the mayor of America's largest city.

Ho appointed a private lawyer -- Paul Clement of Clement & Murphy PLLC -- to argue in favor of keeping the case alive, ordering briefs be filed by March 7 and tentatively scheduling oral argument on March 14.

On Wednesday, acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove and Adams appeared in court in New York City for a conference with Ho, who must approve the Department of Justice's motion to dismiss Adams' criminal case.

Ho said he would not immediately make a decision during the hearing, adding, "I'm not going to shoot from the hip from the bench."

Bove denied that the push to dismiss the charges was part of a quid pro quo, as alleged in a letter by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Danielle Sassoon, related to Adams promising the Trump administration to increase enforcement of illegal immigration. Sassoon resigned in the wake of that letter, as did several members of the DOJ's Public Integrity Section when they were asked to sign off on the dismissal.

Bove said his decision to drop the charges against Adams was a "straightforward exercise of prosecutorial discretion" that was made because the indictment has meant Adams cannot communicate with federal authorities responsible for immigration enforcement.

"The continuation of this prosecution is interfering with national security and immigration enforcement," Bove said in court Wednesday. "The mayor cannot communicate with federal authorities responsible for immigration enforcement, such as the U.S. attorney's office."

Ho wrote Friday that he came to the conclusion the government's position deprives the public of the "adversarial testing" required in the justice system.

"Here, the recent conference helped clarify the parties' respective positions, but there has been no adversarial testing of the Government's position generally or the form of its requested relief specifically," Ho wrote.

"Normally, courts are aided in their decision-making through our system of adversarial testing, which can be particularly helpful in cases presenting unusual fact patterns or in cases of great public importance," he added.

Ho ordered the DOJ and Clement to argue whether the legal standard has been met to dismiss the case, the consequences of not dismissing the case and what additional steps the court should take.

To accommodate Adams' "responsibilities and the burden of continued court appearances," Ho ruled Adams need not attend any future court proceedings.

Lawyers for Adams, meanwhile, continued to push for the case to be dismissed, arguing the DOJ moved to toss the case because of the weakness of the evidence, rather than "policy determinations" related to immigration.

In a filing, attorneys Alex Spiro and William Burck argued that Attorney General Pam Bondi's recent statement that the case demonstrates "a weaponization of government" further suggests the evidence was too weak to secure a conviction.

While the investigation into Adams was initiated at least a year before the mayor began aligning himself with the immigration policies of President Donald Trump, Adam's lawyers continued to argue the case was politically motivated.

"The Department of Justice has realized its error and now seeks to correct the prior Administration's mistake. There is nothing unusual or suspect about setting right what was wrong. That is what justice does," they wrote.