The Justice Department has moved to dismiss corporate fraud charges against Andrew Wiederhorn, a Trump donor who is founder and chairman of restaurant franchisor FAT Brands Inc.
Wiederhorn, the former CEO of the company whose fast-food brands included Fatburger and Johnny Rockets, was indicted in 2024 on allegations he concealed from the IRS $47 million he took from FAT and its affiliate that he improperly characterized as shareholder loans.
In a court filing Tuesday, the US attorney in Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, dismissed all charges without prejudice. The filing—which also called for withdrawing the indictment against the publicly traded FAT Brands, its former chief financial officer, and an outside accountant—didn’t cite a reason.
Wiederhorn’s trial had been scheduled for January.
The White House fired the lead prosecutor on the case, Adam Schleifer in March, according to numerous media reports. Schleifer received a termination letter shortly after Trump ally and right-wing activist Laura Loomer called for his removal due to his prior criticism of Trump when he was a political candidate and not employed at DOJ.
During the 2024 election cycle he contributed nearly $19,000 combined to Trump, his leadership political action committee Save America, the Republican National Committee, and the Republican Party of California, according to OpenSecrets. About half of that spending occurred in the weeks immediately after he was indicted. He’s previously donated to Democrats.
The dismissal comes as Bloomberg Law reported that Essayli privately met with Wiederhorn’s defense attorneys and had been considering dropping charges should he secure a more permanent appointment as US attorney.
Essayli signed the court filing along with a line prosecutor on the case. It was one of his final actions as interim US attorney before the Trump administration was scheduled to give him a new “acting” appointment later Tuesday that would extend his term, which was set to expire Wednesday.
The “acting” appointment has become DOJ’s go-to move as district courts are declining to provide the traditional court appointment to keep temporary chief prosecutors in office indefinitely.
Until DOJ’s reversal Tuesday, Wiederhorn was accused of being a repeat offender. He’d pleaded guilty two decades ago to federal felony counts related to his business and financial dealings at Wilshire Credit Corp. He’s described in a DOJ news release as a “serial tax cheat” who “allegedly treated the company as his personal slush fund.”
A spokesman for the US attorney’s office in LA declined to comment.
“From day one, we have maintained Andy’s innocence,” said Nick Hanna, a partner at Gibson Dunn who represented Wiederhorn and was previously the US attorney in LA in Trump’s first term. “We are extremely grateful that the US Attorney’s Office listened to our arguments and determined, in the interests of justice, that all charges should be dropped.”
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