A private lawyer, Roger Bennet Adler, who was appointed in 2012 by the Office of Court Administration to serve as a special prosecutor investigating the campaign, has announced his intention to dismiss all charges in the “interests of justice” and because he doesn’t have proof that the men, David G. Thomas and David Jones, did anything wrong.

Image Roger Bennet Adler in 2015. Credit... Brian Harkin for The New York Times

There will be no trial.

Like a modern-day version of Inspector Javert from Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables,” the dogged Mr. Adler has spent the better part of five years trying to find evidence that two men stole money from the campaign — even though they made proper filings with the city campaign finance board.

The amount of the purported larceny was $5,000.

It has probably cost 200 times the value of the nonexistent theft for Mr. Adler to reach the conclusion that there is no crime to prosecute.

During the investigation, Mr. Adler billed the city over $520,000 in fees, at $300 an hour, “below the prevailing rate,” he said on Tuesday. He has not yet submitted his final invoice.

The tab for the special prosecutor is just a fraction of the public and private money involved.

Grand jurors sat for months, hearing evidence; multiple judges, up to and including members of the state’s highest court, reviewed and ruled on the case, whittling down the charges; defense lawyers, including, among others, Justine Harris, Florian Miedel and Sam Gregory — who worked at a discount, but not free — filed volumes of motions; the full machinery of the judicial system, including court officers, law clerks and stenographic reporters, was deployed every time there was a hearing. For good measure, at their initial appearances the defendants were handcuffed, fingerprinted and delivered to court in police cars.