Federal prosecutors who investigated Eric Adams put on leave by Justice Department: Sources
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(NEW YORK) — The Justice Department on Friday put three federal prosecutors in Manhattan on leave, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Two of the prosecutors — Andrew Rohrbach and Celia Cohen — worked on the prosecution of New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Rohrbach also worked on the successful prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, former crypto executive Sam Bankman-Fried and lawyer Michael Avenatti.
Cohen worked on multiple mob cases and prosecutions of violent street gangs.
The third individual placed on leave — a member of the office’s civil division — posted about Elon Musk and Ed Martin, a leader of the Stop the Steal movement and President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., the sources said.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.
The Justice Department moved to dismiss corruption charges against Adams, prompting the resignations of several prosecutors in New York and Washington, including Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, who accused the mayor and the Justice Department of negotiating a quid pro quo.
(LONDON) — Dozens of officials in the U.S. Agency for International Development’s humanitarian aid bureau received termination notices over the weekend, despite prior assurances from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the agency’s “core lifesaving medicine, medical services, food, shelter and substance assistance” would be preserved.
Beginning late Friday night, several now-former employees at the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance received termination letters from personnel officers at USAID, according to copies of those letters obtained by ABC News.
BHA is the government’s lead federal agency for international emergency disaster relief, working closely with the military to provide humanitarian aid in the wake of earthquakes, typhoons, hurricanes and other global natural disasters.
Serena Simeoli, a Humanitarian Aid Adviser to the Military at BHA, told ABC News that she received a termination letter on Friday night, but that it was not addressed to her and did not include her name or contract number — so she remains “confused” about what to do.
Simeoli said her small team of some 60 employees had assisted during “sudden-onset disasters, complex emergencies,” including the earthquakes in Haiti and Syria, typhoons in the Philippines, hurricanes in the Caribbean, and the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Without BHA, “it is going to be very challenging” for the U.S. to play a meaningful role in global emergency relief, “and I think I’m a little scared to think how it might go without us,” Simeoli said.
“The work that we do it matters, and we won’t know how much it matters until we’re presented with another catastrophic disaster,” she warned.
“I’ve devoted so much of my life to this organization … I would work around the clock because I believed in what we were doing,” Simeoli said. “It’s pretty painful to see and to be a part of what’s been happening.”
Another former BHA official said some colleagues reported receiving multiple termination notices, including some during the overnight hours this weekend.
That official, a former Marine, said that during his tenure with USAID he had responded to some of the world’s most challenging natural disasters .
“It makes me seriously question why I dedicated my entire adult life to carrying water in the most dangerous places in the world for our government and its people,” said the person, who asked not to be identified out of fear of retaliation.
Rubio wrote in a late January memo that he would grant an emergency waiver to allow USAID’s humanitarian missions to continue — but noted that the “resumption is temporary in nature.”
A State Department representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York is set to hear arguments Tuesday after he temporarily ruled that detained migrants being held in the Southern District of New York could not be deported without due process.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled earlier this month that several alleged Venezuelan gang members could not be deported under the Alien Enemies Act without them first receiving notice and an opportunity for a hearing.
The Trump administration last month touched off a legal battle when it invoked the Alien Enemies Act — an 18th century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process — to deport two planeloads of alleged migrant gang members to the CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States.
An official with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acknowledged that “many” of the men lack criminal records in the United States — but said that “the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose” and “demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision earlier this month, allowed the Trump administration to resume deportations of alleged migrant gang members under the Alien Enemies Act — but said detainees must be given due process to challenge their removal.
Judge Hellerstein, in his temporary order blocking the deportations, suggested his decision was meant to define the parameters of the Supreme Court’s opinion.
The relief Hellerstein granted is limited to approximately a dozen migrants currently detained in a few New York counties.
(TUSCALOOSA, Ala.) — Federal immigration agents have detained a University of Alabama doctoral student who is a citizen of Iran, according to the school and ICE records.
Alireza Doroudi, a doctoral student from Iran studying mechanical engineering, is currently being held in a detention facility, but ICE records do not list where he is being held.
The reason for his detention was not immediately clear.
“The University of Alabama recently learned that a doctoral student has been detained off campus by federal immigration authorities,” the university said in a statement. “Federal privacy laws limit what can be shared about an individual student. International students studying at the University are valued members of the campus community, and International Student and Scholar Services is available to assist international students who have questions.”
“UA has and will continue to follow all immigration laws and cooperate with federal authorities,” it said.
It was not immediately clear whether he had secured legal representation.
Doroudi’s Linkedin page says he is a “trained metallurgy engineer with over ten years of academic experience in Materials Science, welding, and brazing.”
Doroudi is one of multiple college students to recently be detained by ICE.
Tufts University Ph.D. student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national, was arrested by immigration authorities as she was headed to meet her friends and break her fast on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by ICE. Khalil had been one of the leaders of pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University last spring.
Khalil was taken from his student apartment building in lower Manhattan, and then to an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, before being transferred to Louisiana.
President Donald Trump claimed Khalil was a “Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student” and said this is the “first arrest of many to come” in a post on his Truth Social platform this month.
“We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again,” he added.
Khalil and his lawyers have denied he supports Hamas or has any ties to the group.
A second student involved with the protests at Columbia University was also arrested by the Department of Homeland Security this month.
Leqaa Korda was arrested by agents from Homeland Security Investigations for allegedly overstaying her expired visa — which terminated on Jan. 26, 2022. Korda was also allegedly arrested in 2024 for her involvement in the protests, according to DHS.
