UPDATE April 22, 2025 Three more prosecutors on Eric Adams case resign, saying they did nothing wrong after suspensions“We will not confess wrongdoing when there was none," they wrote in a joint letter. Ten attorneys have now left the Justice Department over the handling of the case.
By Jonathan Dienst, Tom Winter and Ryan J. Reilly |
NBC News • Published April 22, 2025 • Updated on April 22, 2025 at 3:57 pm
Three federal prosecutors have chosen to resign instead of admitting wrongdoing following suspensions over their handling of the now-dropped federal corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, saying it is the Trump administration's handling of the case that was wrong, according to a letter seen by NBC News.
Celia Cohen, Andrew Rohrbach and Derek Wikstrom were assistant U.S. attorneys who were suspended after they refused to take part in the Department of Justice's move to drop the prosecution against Adams. A federal judge ordered the case permanently dropped last month so that the charges couldn't be used as "leverage" over Adams, who is cooperating with the Trump administration's immigration priorities.
The corruption case against Adams, who was elected as a Democrat but is now running for re-election as an independent, had sparked a crisis for the Justice Department in the early days of the Trump administration, leading to the biggest mass resignation of DOJ lawyers since the Watergate era.
The former acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle R. Sassoon, resigned over the move to drop the prosecution of Adams, as did several members of the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section. ...