Trump Prosecutor in LA seeks to drop two high-profile criminal cases

Bill Essayli, left, acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, stands by during Vice President JD Vance’s remarks on a visit to Los Angeles on Friday, June 20, 2025. The Trump administration said on July 29 that it would use a legally untested maneuver to ensure that Essayli remains in charge of the office beyond his interim appointment, set to expire on July 30. (Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times)

By Devlin Barret

The Justice Department moved Tuesday to end two high-profile criminal cases in Los Angeles whose handling by the Trump administration had been criticized by veteran prosecutors as alarming.

The moves by the leader of U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli, came on the same day the administration said it would use a legally untested maneuver to ensure that Essayli remains in charge of the office beyond his interim appointment, which was set to expire Wednesday.

Essayli filed court papers asking a judge to dismiss pending criminal charges against Andrew Wiederhorn, the founder of Fatburger, who was fighting accusations of wire fraud and other crimes related to the company. While it is ultimately a judge’s decision whether to dismiss charges, a prosecutor’s request to do so makes it nearly impossible for the case to proceed to trial.

The move to end the Wiederhorn case comes months after White House officials fired the prosecutor in charge of it, Adam Schleifer, whom right-wing influencer and close Trump ally Laura Loomer had publicly attacked on social media.

Schleifer’s dismissal unnerved Justice Department veterans, who could not recall any similar instance in which a White House staff member directly dismissed a lower-level career prosecutor. Along with Schleifer, the White House used the same method to fire a career prosecutor in Memphis, Tennessee.

Essayli also moved Tuesday to dismiss an unrelated case against a deputy sheriff convicted of abusing his authority in assaulting a woman who recorded his actions on her phone.

A federal jury convicted the deputy, Trevor Kirk, in February of violating federal civil rights law by assaulting and pepper-spraying the woman outside a supermarket in 2023, a felony that carried a potential prison sentence of as much as 10 years.

Essayli, however, decided to offer the defendant a plea deal after his conviction, dropping the felony charge if Kirk agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, with a prosecutorial recommendation of no prison time. The judge accepted the arrangement but sentenced Kirk to four months in jail. Essayli has now asked the courts to undo that punishment.

A spokesperson for Essayli declined to comment on the requests to dismiss the two cases.