OAN Staff Blake Wolf
5:55 PM – Thursday, October 3, 2024
New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks will be reportedly resigning in the coming weeks, much sooner than originally expected after a federal probe resulted in his home being raided.
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Banks was originally expected to retire at the end of December, however, a source told the New York Post that NYC Mayor Eric Adams discreetly informed Banks of the situation, requesting him to step down sooner than originally planned.
The unexpected early exit follows a string of federal probes looking into the now-indicted Mayor Eric Adams, as well as the bureaucrats closest to him, prompting multiple home raids.
Adams is being accused of bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy, as well as two counts of soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals.
During the raids, federal authorities seized cell phones belonging to Banks, as well as his wife, Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright.
Agents also seized the phones of Banks’s brothers, Terence and Philip banks. Terence was a former MTA official and Philip is the mayor’s deputy official for public safety.
The Banks family have been longtime friends of Adams, as Adams served in the NYPD with their father.
“Over the past several days it became clear to the mayor and his team that New York City schools will be best led by Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos,” the anonymous source stated. “This was not the chancellor’s decision.”
A City Hall spokesperson confirmed the shift, stating that Aviles-Ramos would start on the 16th of October.
“Chancellor Aviles-Ramos is a lifelong educator and public school veteran whose talent, experience and compassion will lead the school system well through this next chapter,” the spokesperson stated.
Banks’s swift exit follows after marrying Wright over the weekend at Martha’s Vineyard, prompting skeptics to question if the two married for legal “spousal privilege” reasons, which provides the right for husband and wife to refuse to testify against one another, as federal probes continue to develop.
However, Banks responded to the accusation, claiming that he has been “planning the marriage for a while.”
“We made the right decision to do it when we did and any suggestion otherwise to me is just ridiculous on its face,” he added.
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