NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams was thrown a lifeline when the Trump administration moved to drop federal corruption charges against the embattled leader of America’s largest city.
It marked an extraordinary deviation from longstanding norms of federal prosecutions, but, in many ways, was entirely expected, given the months of political intrigue involving closed-door talks and public overtures between the Democratic mayor and Republican president.
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FILE - New York City Mayor Eric Adams, second from left, leaves the courthouse in New York, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
FILE - New York City Mayor Eric Adams exits from federal court in New York, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Kena Betancur, File)
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington. (Photo/Alex Brandon)
FILE - New York City mayor Eric Adams departs Manhattan federal court after an appearance, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
This image provided by Office of the New York Mayor shows New York Mayor Eric Adams as he speaks during an address from City Hall, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. (Ed Reed/Office of the New York Mayor via AP)
New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks during a press conference at City Hall, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025, in New York. A top official at the U.S. Department of Justice has ordered federal prosecutors to drop charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams and halt the ongoing investigation. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
FILE - New York City Mayor Eric Adams exits from Manhattan federal in New York, Friday, Nov. 01, 2024.(AP Photo/Kena Betancur, File)
Here’s what you need to know:
Neither. The Justice Department on Monday simply ordered prosecutors to drop the charges before the case even goes to trial, which had been set for April.
In a two-page memo, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, second in command at the U.S. Justice Department, directed prosecutors in New York to dismiss the bribery charges against Adams “as soon as is practicable."
He also ordered the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to halt the ongoing investigation into the mayor's conduct — at least for now. Bove said prosecutors should review the case sometime after the November mayoral election to see if the charges should be revived.
“There shall be no further targeting of Mayor Adams or additional investigative steps prior to that review,” Bove added.
Prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office had yet to comment on the directive or file any paperwork with the court to begin the process of formally dropping the case.
The decision wasn’t based on the “strength of the evidence” against Adams or the “integrity and efforts” of the career prosecutors who worked on the case, Bove said in his memo.
Instead, the high-profile prosecution — the first against a sitting New York City mayor — has “improperly interfered” with Adams' reelection campaign, he said.
The case has also been distracting the Democratic executive from advancing the priorities of the Republican White House, namely around immigration, argued Bove, who previously served on Trump’s legal team when he was convicted of falsifying business records in New York last year.
“The pending prosecution has unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior Administration,” he wrote.
Extremely. While prosecutions against elected officials occasionally fall apart for reasons related to the strength of the evidence, it is an extraordinary departure for the Justice Department to drop a case because an accused person is perceived to be a likely political ally.
And while judges and prosecutors do sometimes adjust the timing of a trial or an indictment to avoid the appearance that they are interfering in with an election, it is extremely rare to drop an existing case entirely for that reason.
Not quite. Bove’s letter says the case should be dismissed without prejudice, giving prosecutors the flexibility to refile charges at a later date.
The letter also says the mayor has to agree in writing to that key caveat, giving Adams’ critics concern that he will be under intense pressure to meet Trump’s demands if he remains in office.
“The only thing worse for our city than Trump giving the mayor a get-out-of-jail-free card is the unspoken deal that comes with it,” New York City Council member Shaun Abreu, a Democrat who represents upper Manhattan, said on social media. “Our mayor shouldn’t be beholden to anyone but the voters. A dismissal without prejudice means Adams isn’t off the hook; he’s just on notice.”
Adams was indicted in September on charges including conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery.
Prosecutors accused him of accepting illegal campaign contributions and lavish overseas trips while he was a local elected official in Brooklyn and while he was campaigning to become mayor.
The indictment said that in exchange, Adams did favors for foreign government officials and local businesspeople, including expediting city approvals for the Turkish consulate’s new building in Manhattan.
It isn't clear. Prosecutors earlier this month said Mohamed Bahi, Adams’ chief liaison to the Muslim community, planned to plead guilty to charges that he conspired to commit wire fraud by collecting campaign contributions made under the name of someone other than the true contributor.
A Brooklyn real estate magnate, Erden Arkan, previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy, admitting that he worked with a Turkish government official to funnel illegal campaign contributions to Adams.
The mayor goes from the perils of a federal corruption probe to a bruising reelection fight.
He faces at least eight challengers, many of them more left-leaning and progressive. Among them are the current and the former city comptrollers, various state lawmakers and a handful of others who have never held political office.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has also been weighing a potential run. Cuomo resigned in 2021 following a state attorney general report that found he sexually harassed at least 11 women.
Adding to the political calculus, Adams hasn’t ruled out the possibility of switching back to the GOP.
The Brooklynite, who was a registered Republican in the 1990s and early 2000s, attended Trump’s inauguration last month and lunched with top New York Republicans in Washington.
He’s also instructed officials to lawfully cooperate with Trump’s agenda around immigration and other issues, while flatly refusing to criticize the president or any of his policies.
Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.
FILE - New York City Mayor Eric Adams, second from left, leaves the courthouse in New York, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
FILE - New York City Mayor Eric Adams exits from federal court in New York, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Kena Betancur, File)
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington. (Photo/Alex Brandon)
FILE - New York City mayor Eric Adams departs Manhattan federal court after an appearance, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
This image provided by Office of the New York Mayor shows New York Mayor Eric Adams as he speaks during an address from City Hall, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. (Ed Reed/Office of the New York Mayor via AP)
New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks during a press conference at City Hall, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025, in New York. A top official at the U.S. Department of Justice has ordered federal prosecutors to drop charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams and halt the ongoing investigation. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
FILE - New York City Mayor Eric Adams exits from Manhattan federal in New York, Friday, Nov. 01, 2024.(AP Photo/Kena Betancur, File)
MUTTENZ, Switzerland (AP) — Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini won again in court Tuesday and now lead 2-0 in trial verdicts against Swiss federal prosecutors.
Once soccer’s most powerful men, former FIFA president Blatter and former UEFA president Platini were acquitted for a second time in a case now in its 10th year on charges of fraud, forgery, mismanagement and misappropriation of more than $2 million of FIFA money in 2011.
Blatter, now aged 89, gave little reaction listening to the verdict of three cantonal (state) judges acting as a federal criminal appeals court. Sitting in the row in front of Platini, Blatter alternately tapped his fingers on his desk or held his left hand over his mouth.
Only when the 55-minute verdict statement was over did Blatter smile before reaching across to shake his lawyer's hand. Blatter then shared a long hug with his daughter, Corinne.
“You have seen my daughter was coming with tears because she believed in (her) father and I believed in myself,” said Blatter, who spoke of a sword of Damocles being removed from over his head. “To wait such a long time affects the person and my family was very much affected."
Platini sat with his arms folded or rubbing his hands as he listened to a translator sitting beside him relating the court's verdict in German into his native French.
“This persecution by FIFA and some Swiss federal prosecutors for 10 years is now finished, is now totally finished," Platini said leaving the court, insisting his honor was restored. "So I’m very happy.”
The attorney general’s office in Switzerland had challenged a first acquittal in July 2022 and asked for sentences of 20 months, suspended for two years. The indictment alleged the payment “damaged FIFA’s assets and unlawfully enriched Platini.”
“Michel Platini must finally be left in peace in criminal matters,” his lawyer Dominic Nellen said in a statement. ”After two acquittals, even the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland must realize that these criminal proceedings have definitively failed."
A further appeal to the Swiss supreme court can be filed by the prosecutors' office, which said in a statement it “will decide about how to further proceed.”
Blatter and Platini have consistently denied wrongdoing in a decade-long case that ultimately came to nothing in court yet totally altered world soccer body FIFA.
The legal case swung on their claims of a verbal agreement to one day settle the money in question.
Blatter approved FIFA paying 2 million Swiss francs (now $2.21 million) to France soccer great Platini in February 2011 for supplementary and non-contracted salary working as a presidential advisor from 1998-2002.
The latest win for Blatter and the 69-year-old Platini came exactly 9½ years since the Swiss federal investigation was revealed and kicked off events that ended the careers of the two men.
That September 2015 day in Zurich, police came to interrogate them at FIFA after an executive committee meeting when Platini was a strong favorite to succeed his one-time mentor in an upcoming election.
With Platini soon suspended and banned by FIFA, European soccer body UEFA ran his long-time secretary general Gianni Infantino as its election candidate. Infantino was a surprise winner in February 2016 and is set to lead FIFA until at least 2031.
Though federal court trials have twice cleared their names, Blatter’s reputation likely always will be tied to leading FIFA during corruption crises that took down a swath of senior soccer officials worldwide.
Platini, one of soccer’s greatest players and later Blatter’s protégé in soccer politics, never did get the FIFA presidency he often called his destiny.
Neither Blatter nor Platini has worked in soccer since they were suspended by the FIFA ethics committee in October 2015. They were later banned and failed to overturn the bans in separate appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2016.
”The criminal proceedings have had not only legal but also massive personal and professional consequences for Michel Platini, although no incriminating evidence was ever presented," Nellen said, suggesting further legal action "against those responsible for the criminal proceedings.”
Platini’s ban expired in 2019 and Blatter was given a subsequent ban by FIFA in 2021 months before his first was due to end.
Blatter is exiled from soccer until late in 2028 — when he will be 92 — because of an ethics prosecution of alleged self-dealing in eight-figure management bonuses paid for successfully organizing the men’s World Cup in 2010 and 2014.
The verdict was given Tuesday in a low-key provincial courthouse where a four-day trial was held three weeks ago.
Blatter and Platini have claimed at five different judicial bodies — twice at FIFA, then the Court of Arbitration for Sport and now two Swiss federal criminal courts — that they had a verbal “gentleman’s agreement” to one day settle the unpaid and non-contracted salary.
Platini was a storied former captain and coach of the France national term when he worked to help Blatter get elected to lead FIFA in Paris on the eve of the 1998 World Cup he organized.
The two men said Platini agreed to be a presidential adviser on an annual salary of 300,000 Swiss francs (now $340,000) through 2002. They claim there was a verbal deal to later get the balance of 1 million Swiss francs for each year that FIFA could not pay at the time.
Platini started asking for the money early in 2010, citing seven-figure payments made to senior Blatter aides who left FIFA which showed the soccer body could afford to pay him. The payment was finally made in February 2011.
Details of the payment only emerged in the crisis that hit FIFA in May 2015 when U.S. federal investigators unsealed a sweeping investigation of international soccer officials. Swiss authorities made early-morning arrests at hotels in Zurich before seizing FIFA financial and business records.
In 2015, Swiss federal prosecutors already were handling a criminal complaint filed by FIFA. That was about suspected financial wrongdoing linked to votes in December 2010 that picked Russia and Qatar as future World Cup hosts.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Former UEFA President, Michel Platini after the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)
Former UEFA President, Michel Platini after the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)
Former UEFA President, Michel Platini after the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)
Former Fifa President, Sepp Blatter, centre, and his lawyer Lorenz Erni, right, after the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)
Former Fifa President, Sepp Blatter, centre, and his lawyer Lorenz Erni, right, after the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)
Former UEFA President, Michel Platini, after the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)
Former FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)
Former Fifa President, Sepp Blatter, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)
Former UEFA President, Michel Platini, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)
Former UEFA President, Michel Platini, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)
Former UEFA President, Michel Platini, centre, and his Lawyer Dominic Nellen, left, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)
Former Fifa President, Sepp Blatter, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)
Former UEFA President, Michel Platini, centre, and his Lawyer Dominic Nellen, left, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)
Former Fifa President, Sepp Blatter, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)
