By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK, July 17 (Reuters) – The top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn said he had no basis to dispute the U.S. Department of Justice’s decision to abandon its prosecution of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, but stopped short of saying whether he agreed with dismissing the fraud and bribery case.
In a letter on Friday to the judge overseeing the case, U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said he was “not the decisionmaker” behind dropping the case, and had no basis to believe the reasons advanced by his supervisor Trent McCotter, a top Justice Department official, were not the “real grounds” for a dismissal.
U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis had asked Nocella to explain whether he agreed or disagreed with McCotter’s reasons for dropping the Adani case, and whether there were other bases for doing so.
Nocella’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Adani’s lawyers did not immediately respond to similar requests.
McCotter, whose title is principal associate deputy attorney general, in a July 4 letter cited several reasons to dismiss Adani’s case.
These included that the matter was “foreign” because several principals and the alleged wrongdoing were in India, and the U.S. should not pretend to be “the world police.”
He also said Justice Department leadership under former President Joe Biden may have intended to leave their successors with a “potential quagmire of a case.”
Nocella said he attended several meetings related to the case, but it was McCotter who decided the indictment should be dismissed.
ADANI GROUP DENIED WRONGDOING
U.S. authorities accused Adani of agreeing to pay $265 million in bribes to Indian government officials so one of his companies, Adani Green Energy, could develop India’s largest solar power plant.
Adani is the founder and chairman of the conglomerate Adani Group, which has consistently denied wrongdoing. He is worth $88.7 billion, ranking 24th worldwide, Forbes magazine said on Friday.
On Wednesday, Adani acknowledged in a sworn affidavit having offered earlier this year to invest $10 billion in the U.S. to resolve the criminal case and a related Securities and Exchange Commission civil case.
He said his lawyer Robert Giuffra suggested the investment might be part of a settlement “if that was what the DOJ or SEC wanted.”
Adani had floated a possible $10 billion investment in a post on X in November 2024, shortly before he was indicted, and said he was not aware an indictment would be forthcoming.
Giuffra is the co-chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell, and also a personal lawyer to U.S. President Donald Trump.
In a May 11 email made public on Wednesday, Nocella said he “categorically rejected” tying a settlement to any investment, and resolving the SEC case was a separate matter.
Nocella said on Friday he sent that email and signed the May 18 motion to dismiss the criminal case “at the direction, or authorization, of Mr. McCotter.”
JUDGES QUESTION RESOLUTIONS OF HIGH-PROFILE CASES
During Trump’s second White House term, multiple judges have questioned the administration’s willingness to end high-profile cases begun during the Biden administration.
These included last year’s dismissal of federal corruption charges against then-New York City Mayor Eric Adams, which the presiding judge said “smacks of a bargain,” and this month’s approval of an SEC civil settlement with Elon Musk, despite the presiding judge’s “significant misgivings” over whether the world’s richest person was let off easy.
In his letter, McCotter said he decided to dismiss Adani’s criminal case before there was any discussion of an Adani investment.
Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani agreed to pay $18 million to resolve the SEC case. One of his companies, Adani Enterprises, agreed to pay $275 million to resolve a Treasury Department probe.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani, Cynthia Osterman and Chris Reese)
