Prosecutor to Sign Motion Dismissing Mayor Adams Charges

A U.S. federal prosecutor agreed on Friday to file a motion to dismiss the criminal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams to spare other career staff from potentially being fired for refusing to do so, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove in a Friday meeting with all of the department's career public integrity prosecutors told them they had an hour to decide among themselves who would file the motion, the sources said.

A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reuters could not immediately determine the name of the prosecutor, though the names of attorneys filing motions normally appear on those motions when they become public.

Six senior Justice Department officials, including Manhattan's top federal prosecutor, resigned on Thursday rather than comply with Bove's order to dismiss the case.

Earlier, The New York Times reported the Adams case remained open late Thursday because no department official had formally filed the dismissal motion in federal court.

Danielle Sassoon, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, resigned Thursday rather than obey a DOJ order to drop corruption charges against Adams.

After Bove then asked officials in the department's Washington headquarters to take over the case, five prosecutors in the criminal division and public integrity unit also quit, the Times reported.

A seventh federal prosecutor assigned to the corruption case against Adams resigned Friday in a blistering letter that accused top leaders at the DOJ of looking for a "fool" to dismiss the criminal charges, CNN reported.

Attorney Hagan Scotten was a line prosecutor on the case and had been placed on administrative leave Thursday for refusing to sign off on its dismissal.

Scotten then explained his decisions in a letter to Bove.

"Any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way," Scotten told Bove, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney.

The resignation of Sassoon, a Republican who was the interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was confirmed by a spokesperson for the office.

Dropping the charges "for reasons having nothing to do with the strength of the case" went against the "duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor," Sassoon wrote in a letter to Bove.

Her resignation came days after a senior Justice Department official directed New York prosecutors to drop the case against Adams.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.