Eric Adams prosecutor quits DOJ over case dismissal order

Danielle Sassoon, assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, left, arrives at court in New York, US, on Thursday, March 28, 2024. 

Yuki Iwamura | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A seventh federal prosecutor resigned Friday over the Department of Justice’s controversial order to dismiss criminal corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.

The prosecutor, Hagan Scotten, in a blistering letter to top DOJ official Emil Bove, said “I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion” to dismiss the Adams case.

“But it was never going to be me,” wrote Scotten, who had been the lead prosecutor in Adams’ case for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

On Thursday, Scotten’s boss, acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon resigned in protest over Bove’s order to toss the case.

Within hours of Sassoon quitting, five top prosecutors at the DOJ resigned, rather than execute Bove’s order.

Scotten, a Harvard Law School grad and U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq, had been placed on administrative leave by Bove on Thursday, along with another prosecutor on the Adams case, Derek Wikstrom.

Bove in a letter to Sassoon said he was taking that step after she indicated that Scotten and Wikstrom agreed with her decision to refuse to drop the case, and were “unwilling to comply with the order to dismiss this case.”

Bove said the prosecutors would be investigated by Attorney General Pam Bondi and the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility for their conduct, along with Sassoon. Bondi then would determine if Scotten and the prosecutors should be fired, Bove wrote.

This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.