By Heather Grossmann
DNAinfo News Editor
MANHATTAN — Former DA Robert Morgenthau has resigned from his post overseeing the city's court-ordered effort to recruit more minorities to the FDNY following protests over his appointment from Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration.
The resignation came Tuesday after the city's law department had questioned Morgenthau's ability to oversee the implementation of the city's hiring practice without bias, given the contentious relationship he had with the mayor at the end of his tenure as Manhattan's District Attorney.
"A reasonable person, knowing all the facts, would conclude that Mr. Morgenthau's impartiality could reasonably be questioned," wrote city lawyer Georgia Pestana in papers submitted last week to Brooklyn Federal Court.
In a fiery letter to Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who had appointed him to the post, Morgenthau called the claims ridiculous, but said he felt compelled to resign because of them.
"This contention [of prejudice] is absurd," Morgenthau wrote, the New York Post reported. "[Because] the city’s Law Department has now objected to my service, claiming I will be perceived as biased against the current administration...[I] request that the Court relieve me of the duties I undertook to perform."
Judge Garaufis was angered by the city's efforts to discredit Morgenthau.
"This appointment [of Morgenthau] was necessitated by the city’s refusal to obey court orders to fulfill its remedial-phase obligations in a timely manner," Garaufis wrote in a response to Morgenthau's departure, the Post reported.
"The city has now decided to further delay proceedings by attempting to disqualify the very person who was appointed to speed things up."
Morgenthau, 90, had several disagreements with Bloomberg during his final months as district attorney — last December, Morgenthau and Bloomberg fought over the disbursement of $83 million in fines, forfeitures and settlements kept in the DA's accounts.
In his role as "special master" to oversee the city's implementation of FDNY minority hiring reforms, Morgenthau would have overseen court-ordered changes to city hiring practices that the mayor has opposed.
The Justice Department originally sued the FDNY in 2007 on behalf of an organization of black firefighters called the Vulcan Society. An investigation of the FDNY's hiring practices found blacks and Hispanics accounted for less than 10 percent of the city’s firemen last year. Bloomberg has been fighting a ruling demanding changes to the recruitment process because he believes there are better ways to make the FDNY more diverse.
In a statement, the city's law department denied that they had tried to push Morgenthau out.
"We respectfully disagree with any suggestion by Judge Garaufis that we sought to disqualify Mr. Morgenthau or that we have taken any other steps to delay this case," a law department lawyer said in a statement to the Post.
Former Acting U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White will take over Morgenthau's post.
