USA – NEW YORK Trends and Developments Contributed by: Jilan J. Kamal, Michelle Ben-David and Laszlo Herwitz, Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer
to be continuing to prosecute consumer fraud cases involving cryptocurrency. In June 2025, the NYAG announced that it had frozen USD300,000 in crypto - currency linked to scammers targeting Russian-lan - guage speakers with fake cryptocurrency investment schemes, demonstrating that James’ office will likely still pursue consumer-targeted scams, in addition to more complex securities regulation-based cases. Ultimately, as the Trump administration endeavours to paint itself as friendly to the newly burgeoning cryp - tocurrency industry, the task of regulating to prevent against schemes analogous to those in the securities industry will likely continue to fall to the states in which the bulk of such financial activity is concentrated, par - Similar to cryptocurrency, it appears that state and local offices will also step in to fill gaps left by a decline in federal prosecutions of public corruption. Under the Biden administration, the SDNY and EDNY aggres - sively pursued such cases. By contrast, the Trump administration has signalled a shift away from such prosecutions. In March 2025, it was reported that the public corruption unit at the DOJ would be significantly reduced in size, and in May 2025 it was announced that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) would be dismantling one of its primary public corruption squads. ticularly New York. Public corruption This distaste for public corruption prosecutions is best exemplified in Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove’s February 2025 instruction to the SDNY to drop a pending corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams for bribery, fraud, and solici - tation of illegal campaign donations, including from individuals tied to the government of Turkey. The basis for the decision was allegedly unnamed impropriety on the part of the former US Attorney as well as a concern that charging Adams would hamper his “abil - ity to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior Administration.” No fewer than ten prosecutors (in the SDNY and at Main Justice) were dramatically fired or resigned in connection with these events, including the acting United States Attor -
ney for the SDNY, Danielle Sassoon. While the SDNY requested the charges be dismissed without prejudice so that they could be brought at a later date, Judge Ho rejected that request and dismissed the charges with prejudice. Meanwhile, since taking office in 2022, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has pursued several corruption and bribery investigations and shows no signs of slowing down. In December 2024, Bragg’s office charged former Chief Adams adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin and her son, Glenn Martin II, with brib - ery, money laundering, and conspiracy in connection with USD100,000 they received from two New York businessmen in exchange for Lewis-Martin’s help with expediting construction projects. In August 2025, Bragg’s office announced additional charges of brib - ery and conspiracy against Lewis-Martin, her son, for - mer State Senator Jesse Hamilton, real estate devel - oper Yechiel Landau, donors Gina and Tony Argento, and businessman Tian Ji Li. The indictment alleged that Lewis-Martin accepted gifts and payments in exchange for securing city lease agreements and permits on behalf of Li and blocking the expansion of a bike lane on behalf of the Argentos. Hamilton and Lewis-Martin were also charged with helping to expedite Landau’s construction projects in exchange for free renovations. These latest charges suggest Bragg’s office will con - tinue to prioritise enforcement in this space, even in the absence of complementary federal investigations. Developments in the Prosecution of Financial Fraud Lastly, two appellate developments will likely shape the tenor and picture of fraud prosecutions in New York in the year ahead. First, at the federal level, the US Supreme Court’s May 2025 decision in Kousisis v United States clarified that prosecutors need not prove economic loss under the federal wire fraud stat - ute, affirming the “fraudulent inducement” theory of wire fraud common in EDNY and SDNY white-collar prosecutions. The decision surprised some observ - ers as it bucked a more recent trend at the Supreme Court seeking to narrow the scope of federal fraud statutes to exclude certain categories of misstate - ment from federal prosecution, possibly out of, as
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