Justice Dept. Is Said to Put Two Prosecutors in Adams Case on Leave

Two Manhattan prosecutors who worked on the corruption case against New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, were put on administrative leave by the Justice Department on Friday, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

The prosecutors, Celia Cohen and Andrew Rohrbach, had been serving in high-ranking positions in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, the people said. Ms. Cohen had been chief counsel to the acting U.S. attorney, Matthew Podolsky, while Mr. Rohrbach had worked as a co-chief of the general crimes unit.

Two of the people said the Justice Department in Washington had acted without any warning on Friday and that Ms. Cohen and Mr. Rohrbach were immediately escorted out of the Lower Manhattan building that houses the U.S. attorney’s office.

A spokesman for the office declined to comment, and a spokesman for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The development was first reported by ABC News.

The action came less than a month after Justice Department officials in Washington ordered federal prosecutors in Manhattan to ask a judge to dismiss the case against Mr. Adams, leading to the resignations of at least eight prosecutors and supervisors in New York and Washington, including the government’s lead lawyer on the case. Another prosecutor who worked on the case, Derek Wikstrom, was placed on administrative leave at the time.

Prosecutors in Washington last month asked a Manhattan federal judge to dismiss the case, saying that it was hampering Mr. Adams’s cooperation with the White House’s immigration agenda. That motion is still pending.

This is a developing story and will be updated.