Three more prosecutors resign in aftermath of dismissal of case against NYC mayor
NEW YORK (AP) — Three more federal prosecutors who had been involved in the now-dismissed corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams resigned on Tuesday, saying they felt pressured into admitting wrongdoing or regret as a condition for being reinstated to their jobs.
“We will not confess wrongdoing when there was none,” Celia Cohen, Andrew Rohrbach and Derek Wikstrom wrote in a letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
The three assistant U.S. attorneys had been placed on leave after a number of prosecutors in New York and Washington refused to follow orders to end the case against Adams, a Democrat.
The letter was published by several news outlets. Its authenticity was confirmed to The Associated Press by a person who received the letter.
The resignations came the same day that Jay Clayton, former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, was sworn in as the New York office’s new top prosecutor.
Adams was indicted last year, accused of taking illegal campaign contributions and travel perks from a Turkish official and others seeking to buy influence when he previously served as Brooklyn borough president.
In February, after President Donald Trump took office, the Justice Department ordered then-acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, to drop the charges against Adams — not due to the merits of the case, but rather so the mayor could assist in the Trump administration ’s immigration agenda.
Sassoon opted to resign instead, as did several other career prosecutors who objected to the criminal case being dismissed for political reasons. The case was eventually dismissed in April.
Cohen, Rohrbach and Wikstrom wrote in their resignation letter that it had become clear to them that one of the “preconditions” Blanche placed on them returning to work was to “express regret and admit some wrongdoing by the Office in connection with the refusal to move to dismiss the case.”
The new leaders of the Justice Department, they wrote, had “decided that obedience supersedes all else, requiring us to abdicate our legal and ethical obligations in favor of directions from Washington. That is wrong.”
Blanche said in a statement that there was nothing illegal or unethical about “dismissing the flawed prosecution against Mayor Adams.”
“Any suggestion to the contrary by anybody, especially former federal prosecutors, is wrong and disingenuous,” he wrote.
Emil Bove, then the acting deputy attorney general, had argued previously that Adams was being prosecuted because he had criticized former President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
In dismissing the case, Judge Dale E. Ho noted that the record showed the prosecutors who worked on the case had followed all guidelines.
“There is no evidence — zero — that they had any improper motives,” Ho wrote in his ruling.
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Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report from Washington.
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press
