Manhattan’s acting U.S. attorney resigned on Thursday after the Justice Department ordered her to drop a corruption case against New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
The resignation of the U.S. attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon, after the order to dismiss the charges just weeks into President Trump’s second term called into doubt the independence of federal prosecutors under his administration.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office did not immediately comment. An official with the Justice Department in Washington declined to comment.
Ms. Sassoon, who had supported the case against Mr. Adams, notified her office of her decision in a brief email at about 2 p.m.
“Moments ago, I submitted my resignation to the attorney general,” she wrote in the email, the text of which was provided to The New York Times. “As I told her, it has been my greatest honor to represent the United States and to pursue justice as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.”
She continued: “It has been a privilege to be your colleague, and I will be watching with pride as you continue your service to the United States.”
The Trump administration last month named Ms. Sassoon, a veteran prosecutor, to head the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York on an interim basis while Mr. Trump’s choice for the job, Jay Clayton, awaited Senate confirmation.
She was immediately swept into conversations with Justice Department officials about the criminal case against Mr. Adams.
Mr. Adams was indicted last year on five counts, including bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations, stemming from an investigation that began in 2021. Mr. Adams had pleaded not guilty and was scheduled for trial in April.
But the Justice Department’s No. 2 official, Emil Bove III, directed Ms. Sassoon to dismiss the case and to cease all further investigative steps against Mr. Adams until a review could be conducted by the Senate-confirmed U.S. attorney, presumably Mr. Clayton, after the mayoral election in November.
The Southern District has long been viewed as the nation’s most prestigious U.S. attorney’s office, handling complex and often high-profile cases involving Wall Street, national security and public corruption. Although the office is part of the Justice Department — there are 93 U.S. attorney’s offices around the country — the Southern District has a reputation for guarding its independence and fending off interference from Washington, winning it the nickname “the Sovereign District.”
Ms. Sassoon, 38, joined the Southern District in 2016. A graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School, she clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, and is a member of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group.
Ms. Sassoon is best known for the successful fraud prosecution and 2023 conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, who received 25 years in prison. She also prosecuted Lawrence V. Ray, who was convicted in 2022 of extortion and sex trafficking related to his abuse of Sarah Lawrence College students. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison.
In 2023, Ms. Sassoon was named co-chief of the Southern District’s criminal appeals unit, the position she held when she was promoted last month to interim U.S. attorney.
In his directive to Ms. Sassoon to drop the Adams case, Mr. Bove wrote that the Justice Department had reached its decision without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case was based, issues “on which we defer to the U.S. attorney’s office at this time,” Mr. Bove said.
Devlin Barrett contributed reporting.
Recently, Manhattan’s federal prosecutor has announced his resignation after the case against R&B singer R. Kelly Adams was ordered to be dropped. This decision comes as a shock to many, as the prosecutor had been leading the case against Adams for several months.
The prosecutor’s resignation has raised questions about the handling of the case and the reasons behind the decision to drop the charges. Some speculate that there may have been political pressure or other external factors at play.
Regardless of the reasons behind the decision, Adams’ legal team is celebrating the news and expressing their relief that the case has been dropped. They are now looking forward to moving on from this ordeal and focusing on Adams’ future.
It remains to be seen what impact this development will have on the legal system and future cases in Manhattan. In the meantime, many are left wondering what led to the sudden resignation of the federal prosecutor and what it means for the justice system moving forward.
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