Three federal prosecutors who worked in the case of corruption against the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, resigned on Tuesday, while they were on administrative license, instead of accepting “previous conditions” that they return to the office, sending an acute letter to the general lawyer Todd Blanche and accuse him of pressing them to “express their replacement and admit some inactivated in the case” in the case. “
“The department placed each of us in an administrative license to review our, and the Office of the Prosecutor of the Southern District of New York, the management of the Adams Case”, the trio of prosecutors assigned to the case of Adams, Celia V. Cohen, Andrew Rohrbach and Derek Wikstrom, to Blanche. “Now it is clear that one of the previous conditions that has placed on our return to the office is that we must express repentance and admit that the office was related to the office in relation to the refusal to move us to dismiss the case. We will not confess irregularities when there were none.”
The three lawyers were part of a group in the Department of Justice that refused to sign the dismissal of the Adams bribery case in February. They were placed on administrative license last month when an investigation was developed.
“We have served under presidents of both parties, advancing their priorities while pursuing justice without fear or favor,” the three prosecutors wrote. “The role of a career prosecutor is not to establish a policy. But a prosecutor must comply with the oath to defend the constitution and laws of the United States and the professional ethics rules established by the Bar Association and the Courts.”
They later added: “Now, the department has decided that obedience replaces everything else, which requires that we abdicate our legal and ethical obligations in favor of Washington’s instructions. That’s wrong.”
The Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, speaks during a press conference after a helicopter accident on the Hudson River in Pier 40, in New York City, on April 12, 2025.
Charly triballeau/AFP through Getty Images, Archive
The consequences of the Interim Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to the request that the Southern District of New York dismissed the charges without prejudice began in mid -February. Danielle Sassoon, who then acts as an American lawyer for the Southern New York district, resigned from his position on February 13 after suggesting that the leadership of the DOJ, including Bove, was explicitly aware of a quid pro quo suggested by Adams lawyers, saying that the vocal support of Adams of immigration policies of the Adams president would be promoted by the discarded injection against him.
“Instead of being rewarded, Adams’s defense should be called for what it is: an inadequate offer of immigration application assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case,” Sassoon wrote at that time. “Although Mr. Bove resigned from any intention to exchange Clement in this case for the assistance of Adams to enforce the federal law, that is the nature of the bargain in the memorandum of Mr. Bove.”
Five other officials of the Department of Justice would join Sassoon to resign the office in protest, while at least six senior officials of the Department of Justice refused to sign the dismissal of the case, sources told ABC News last month.
Adams was accused last year in the South District of New York for five positions in an alleged long -standing conspiracy related to inadequate benefits, illegal campaign contributions and an cover -up attempt. He had declared himself innocent.
The lawyer was signed by a lawyer in the public integrity section of the Department of Justice, leaving the decision to dismiss the case to a federal judge in New York.
On April 2, Judge Dale officially dismissed the case, however, he did so with prejudice, which means that the charges cannot be revived. The Department of Justice had asked the charges to be dismissed without prejudice and said they could be brought against Adams again after the elections of Mayor of November.
But three weeks later, the consequences continued with Tuesday’s letter.
The three prosecutors ended their letter to Blanche: “Serving in the South District of New York has been an honor. There is no greater privilege than working for an institution whose mandate is to do the right thing, the correct form, for the right reasons. We will not abandon this principle to maintain our work. We renounced.”
The United States Prosecutor’s Office for the South District of New York declined to comment.
