The Justice Department moved Monday to dismiss the historic bribery case against Mayor Eric Adams — in a major win for the leader of the Big Apple personally and politically, The Post has confirmed.
The new Department of Justice under President Donald Trump instructed the Southern District of New York to dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning charges could be re-filed in the future, sources said.
A rep for SDNY declined to comment.
The stunning turn of events appears to signal the end of the years-long criminal probe into Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign that has hung over Hizzoner’s head during his scandal-plagued first term in office.
Adams, who was indicted in September, was accused of accepting thousands of dollars in free or upgraded luxury travel as bribes from foreign nationals in exchange for political favors, including helping fast-track the opening of the Turkish Consulate in Manhattan.
The dismissal motion comes after weeks of Adams trying to get in Trump’s good graces by going out of his way to not criticize the president and publicly align himself with new immigration policies.
Adams also hurried down to Trump’s inauguration on a middle-of-the-night invite hours before the ceremony and flew to have lunch with the then-president-elect at one of his golf clubs near Mar-a-Lago.
In addition, his celebrity attorney Alex Spiro had been working through legal back channels to find some way out of the case with either a pardon or dismissal.
On Jan. 31, the mayor’s defense team met with some of the highest members of the DOJ in Washington D.C.
Unincumbered by the looming potential prison time, Adams can now pivot to what still is expected to be a bruising primary with a slate of Dems looking to dethrone a seemingly vulnerable incumbent mayor.
The bribery case, though, was just one of the issues that dragged down Adams’ poll numbers to record lows — including crime, the migrant crisis and a cast of cronies brought into the admin by the mayor who have also found themselves in similar legal troubles.
News of the investigation burst onto the scene in November 2023 when Adams’ top fundraiser, Brianna Suggs, was raided by the feds forcing the mayor to abruptly return from Washington DC just moments after landing.
Agents also raided Brooklyn-based KSK Construction and the homes of Rana Abbsova, a longtime Adams staffer, and Cenk Öcal, a former Turkish Airline executive and member of the mayoral transition team.
Days later, the feds stopped Adams on the street and ordered him to hand over all his electronic devices, including a phone that he “forgot” the password for and feds have been unable to access.
On Sept. 26, then-US Attorney Damian Williams’ Southern District of New York office unveiled the historic 57-page indictment against the mayor.
For months, the mayor’s high-profile attorney Spiro has tried to convince the Biden DOJ and the judge hearing the case to dismiss the case to no avail.
Adams’ defense team long expected a Trump administration to be more amenable to their case, either through a presidential pardon or a dismissal motion from the highest levels of the DOJ — despite the case starting under Trump’s first term in 2021.
Judge Dale Ho, who has heard the case in Manhattan federal court, will still have to sign off on the dismissal, however, that appears to just be a formality with prosecutors saying they have no intention of continuing the case.
