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    Emil Bove, Top Justice Dept. Official, Is Considered for Circuit Court Nomination

    Emil Bove III has emerged as a top contender to fill a vacancy on the appeals court covering Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, people familiar with the matter said.President Trump is considering nominating Emil Bove III, a top Justice Department official responsible for enacting his immigration agenda and ordering the purge of career prosecutors, to be a federal appeals judge, according to people familiar with the matter.Mr. Bove, 44, is a former criminal defense lawyer for Mr. Trump and a longtime federal prosecutor in New York. He was the Justice Department official at the center of the Trump administration’s request earlier this year to dismiss a corruption case against the mayor of New York, Eric Adams.One of the department’s most formidable and feared political appointees in the second Trump administration, he has emerged as a top contender to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, those people said.There are two vacancies on the court — one based in New Jersey and one in Delaware. It is not clear which seat Mr. Bove is under consideration for. He has a property in Pennsylvania, and some conservatives have called for moving the Delaware-based seat to Pennsylvania.The people familiar with the matter spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive internal matter that has not yet been publicly announced. They cautioned that the timing remains unclear, and the intentions could still shift.If Mr. Bove is nominated for the post, Democrats are all but certain to use his Senate confirmation process to scrutinize his role in some of the Justice Department’s most contentious actions since Mr. Trump took office.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Why New York City Is Removing Padlocks on Illegal Weed Shops It Closed

    With the court orders that allowed the city to seal illicit cannabis stores starting to expire, questions remain about whether the shops could reopen.Mayor Eric Adams of New York on Wednesday visited a pizzeria in Queens that was once an illegal smoke shop to celebrate the success of his administration’s crackdown on illegal cannabis shops, even as the city is bracing for a potential resurgence.Mr. Adams said the pizzeria, which is named Salsa and opened in Rego Park in March, demonstrated how the enforcement against illegal weed sellers has paved the way for other small businesses to open and for the legal cannabis industry to thrive.“We went from illegal items that were harmful to communities to pizza, good food, good-paying jobs and a support system,” he said.The mayor said his administration has shut down about 1,400 smoke shops since the crackdown started last May. At the same time, the number of licensed cannabis dispensaries in the city has surpassed 160 and generated more than $350 million in sales.In the wake of state lawmakers’ decision to legalize recreational marijuana in 2021, the number of unlicensed weed shops exploded throughout the city, undercutting licensed dispensaries before they had the chance to open. The move to shutter the renegade shops — which in Manhattan alone vastly exceeded the number of Starbucks coffee shops — was widely applauded.But the court orders that allowed the city sheriff to seal the illegal businesses with padlocks for one year have begun to expire, requiring the city to remove the locks.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Why Did Eric Adams Have So Many Cellphones?

    Mayor Eric Adams of New York was said to have used seven different phone numbers. He argued that “many New Yorkers have several phones.”One surprising detail emerged in the trove of documents released about Mayor Eric Adams’s federal corruption case: The mayor used at least seven different cellphone numbers during the yearslong period in which he was under investigation.Mr. Adams had a ready explanation for why he had so many phones.“You have your office phone, you have your personal phone — you can’t mix the two,” Mr. Adams told reporters over the weekend, adding: “Many New Yorkers have several phones. I had also my campaign phone. So there’s a series of phones that you have.”The mayor said that he had to get additional phones after federal authorities stopped him on the street in November 2023 and took his electronic devices as part of the investigation.It was a glimpse into the personal life of a man whose habits have often been shrouded in uncertainty — his place of residence has at times been hard to pin down, and he has rarely been seen in public with his longtime partner — and have long been the subject of public curiosity.The mayor’s many devices were a prominent part of the federal investigation that led to his indictment in September on five counts, including bribery, wire fraud and solicitation of illegal foreign donations. Mr. Adams has maintained his innocence.The F.B.I. obtained warrants to track Mr. Adams’s location using cellphone data and found that he had used seven different phone numbers since the investigation began in August 2021, according to the roughly 1,700 pages of documents from his case that were released on Friday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Eric Adams to Meet With Trump in Washington About NYC ‘Priorities’

    The meeting on Friday between Mayor Eric Adams of New York City and President Trump comes as documents related to his abandoned federal corruption case are set to be released.Mayor Eric Adams of New York City was scheduled to meet with President Trump in Washington on Friday just hours before documents related to his abandoned federal corruption case were set to be released.The mayor’s office announced on Friday morning that Mr. Adams would visit Mr. Trump at 3 p.m. to “discuss New York City priorities.”The timing coincides with the expected release of material related to the shuttered criminal case against Mr. Adams, which the Trump administration dropped earlier this year. The material, which is scheduled to be filed by the Justice Department late Friday afternoon, includes search warrants related to the investigation, as well as affidavits describing the evidence.The material is expected to elucidate the charges against Mr. Adams, which a federal judge, Dale E. Ho, dismissed last month after a request from high-ranking officials in the Justice Department who said it was hindering the mayor’s cooperation with the president’s immigration agenda.Earlier this week, the New York Police Department announced it was investigating why its officers gave investigators from the Department of Homeland Security the sealed arrest record of a New Jersey woman who was detained at a protest as part of their efforts to deport her.The Justice Department’s move to abandon the case against Mr. Adams caused an uproar within the department and led to the resignation of at least eight prosecutors in New York and Washington, including the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Danielle Sassoon.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Kehlani Concert in Central Park Is Canceled After Pressure From Mayor

    The singer, a vocal critic of Israel, had been scheduled to perform in June as part of Pride festivities. Two weeks ago, Cornell dropped a plan to have her headline a concert.The nonprofit group behind the SummerStage concerts has canceled a scheduled Central Park performance by the popular R&B singer Kehlani under pressure from the administration of Mayor Eric Adams.The move came on Monday after a top New York City official warned the group, the City Parks Foundation, that its license to stage the long-running concert series could be at risk if it did not “promptly take steps” to address “security concerns” raised by the planned show.Billed as “Pride With Kehlani,” the concert was to take place on June 26 as part of the city’s broader Pride festivities. It was the second scheduled Kehlani performance to be canceled in recent weeks amid a furor over the singer’s pro-Palestinian stance.Unlike Cornell University officials, who explicitly cited what they said were Kehlani’s antisemitic and anti-Israel views when they dropped the singer two weeks ago as the headliner of an annual campus concert, the city official, First Deputy Mayor Randy M. Mastro, did not invoke the singer’s personal opinions.Instead, he said in a letter to the foundation’s executive director, Heather Lubov, that the Adams administration’s concerns were based on “the controversy” surrounding the scheduled Cornell performance, as well as the security demands posed by such an event in Central Park and by other Pride events around the city.Mr. Mastro wrote that the police would conduct a security assessment of the concert. If the department determined that the event posed “an unacceptable risk to public safety,” he added, there could be implications for SummerStage’s future. The series began in 1986.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Digestible Politics of the Message Tee

    Some elected officials and those in power are making use of a classic bit of fashion to deliver big ideas.With his approval rating dipping, New Yorkers seem to have lost trust in their mayor Eric Adams. But Mr. Adams is up front about where he’s putting his own trust right now: with God.On Tuesday, Mr. Adams, who announced that he would be running for re-election not as a Democrat but an independent, appeared at a press briefing wearing a T-shirt with the words “In God We Trust,” printed above an American flag.“This outfit is not campaigning, this outfit is my life,” Mr. Adams told reporters when asked about the white shirt, which looked to be about as premium as something purchased at a boardwalk souvenir stall.“I went through hell for 15 months and all I had was God,” said Mr. Adams, alluding to the federal corruption charges that were dropped against him this month.Mr. Adams is not the only political figure bringing the graphic T-shirt into formal political spaces.During President Trump’s prime-time address in early March a cluster of Democrats wore slogan T-shirts, providing a cotton-based clap-back to the president’s talking points. A few brandished the recognizable text: “Resist.” Florida representative Maxwell Frost, the first Gen-Z member of Congress wore a tee with the slogan “No Kings Live Here.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Read the Justice Department’s filing in the Adams case.

    Case 1:24-cr-00556-DEH Document 175-1 Filed 03/25/25
    Page 10 of 15
    the motion is uncontested, the court should ordinarily presume that the prosecutor is acting in good
    faith and dismiss the indictment without prejudice”). But Adams’s consent-which was
    negotiated without my Office’s awareness or participation-would not guarantee a successful
    motion, given the basic flaws in the Department’s rationales. See Nederlandsche Combinatie, 428
    F. Supp. at 117 (declining to “rubber stamp” dismissal because although defendant did not appear
    to object, “the court is vested with the responsibility of protecting the interests of the public on
    whose behalf the criminal action is brought”).
    The Government “may, with leave of court, dismiss an indictment” under Rule 48(a) of the
    Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. “The principal object of the ‘leave of court’ requirement is
    apparently to protect a defendant against prosecutorial harassment, e.g., charging, dismissing, and
    recharging, when the Government moves to dismiss an indictment over the defendant’s objection.”
    Rinaldi v. United States, 434 U.S. 22, 30 n.15 (1977). “But the Rule has also been held to permit
    the court to deny a Government dismissal motion to which the defendant has consented if the
    motion is prompted by considerations clearly contrary to the public interest.” Id.; see also JM 9-
    2.050 (reflecting Department’s position that a “court may decline leave to dismiss if the manifest
    public interest requires it).
    “Rarely will the judiciary overrule the Executive Branch’s exercise of these prosecutorial
    decisions.” Blaszczak, 56 F.4th at 238. But courts, including the Second Circuit, will nonetheless
    inquire as to whether dismissal would be clearly contrary to the public interest. See, e.g., id. at
    238-42 (extended discussion of contrary to public interest standard and cases applying it); see also
    JM 9-2.050 (requiring “a written motion for leave to dismiss. . . explaining fully the reason for
    the request” to dismiss for cases of public interest as well as for cases involving bribery). Although
    it appears rare, at least one court in our district has rejected a dismissal under Rule 48(a) as contrary
    to the public interest, regardless of the defendant’s consent. See Nederlandsche Combinatie, 428
    F. Supp. At 116-17 (“After reviewing the entire record, the court has determined that a dismissal
    of the indictment against Mr. Massaut is not in the public interest. Therefore, the government’s
    motion to dismiss as to Mr. Massaut must be and is denied.”).
    The cases show some inconsistency concerning what courts should do if they find the
    standard for dismissal without prejudice not met. Some have instead dismissed indictments with
    prejudice. See, e.g., United States v. Madzarac, 678 F. Supp. 3d 43 (D.D.C. 2023). The better-
    reasoned view, however, is that courts considering a Rule 48(a) motion to dismiss without
    prejudice must either grant or deny the motion as made-they cannot grant the dismissal, but do
    so with prejudice, unless the Government consents. See United States v. B.G.G., 53 F.4th 1353,
    1369 (11th Cir. 2022) (“[R]ule 48(a) does not give the district court the discretion to rewrite the
    government’s dismissal motion from one without prejudice to one with prejudice.”); United States
    v. Flotron, 17 Cr. 00220 (JAM), 2018 WL 940554, at *5 (D. Conn. Feb. 19, 2018) (denying
    Government’s motion to dismiss without prejudice as contrary to public interest and requiring
    Government to proceed to trial); see also In re United States, 345 F.3d 450, 453 (7th Cir. 2003)
    (suggesting that courts might condition grant of Rule 48(a) motion on Government’s consent that
    prejudice attach).
    The assigned District Judge, the Honorable Dale E. Ho, appears likely to conduct a
    searching inquiry in this case. Although Judge Ho is a recent appointee with little judicial track
    record, he has resolved the motions in this case in lengthy written opinions that included research
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    Adams’s Associates Under Federal Investigation Over Ties to China

    The Justice Department is pushing to drop corruption charges against Eric Adams in Manhattan while federal authorities in Brooklyn have been investigating his top fund-raisers.The Trump administration appears likely to succeed in having federal corruption charges dropped against Mayor Eric Adams in Manhattan.But in Brooklyn, a separate group of prosecutors has been conducting a long-running investigation involving Mr. Adams’s most prominent fund-raiser — and at one point searched her homes and office for evidence of a possible Chinese government scheme to influence Mr. Adams’s election, according to a copy of a search warrant, portions of which were read to The New York Times.Mr. Adams has known the fund-raiser, Winnie Greco, for more than a decade, and he appointed her to be his Asian affairs adviser after he became mayor in 2022. She has been a close collaborator with people and groups linked to the Chinese government over the years, and she has showed a willingness to steer politicians toward pro-Beijing narratives, The Times reported in October.The searches of her homes in the Bronx and office in Queens occurred early last year and were overseen by prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York. The agents conducting the searches were also seeking evidence of solicitation of illegal contributions from foreign nationals, wire fraud and conspiracy, the warrant said.On the day Ms. Greco’s homes were searched, and as part of the same investigation, agents also searched the mansion of another prominent fund-raiser for the Adams campaign, Lian Wu Shao, on Long Island, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The search of Mr. Shao’s home has not been previously reported.A wealthy Chinese businessman, Mr. Shao is the operator of the New World Mall in Flushing, Queens, which housed Ms. Greco’s office. Records show that hundreds of donors associated with his companies boosted Mr. Adams’s 2021 campaign.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More