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NYC Schools Chancellor David Banks announces retirement weeks after feds raided his home
NEW YORK – New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks is retiring.
Officials insisted his decision was made before federal agents raided his home and seized his phones, and that of his partner First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, on Sept. 4.
Banks is just the latest top leader of the Adams administration to announce their departure.
It comes just one day after Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan announced his resignation for personal and family reasons.
In his resignation letter, Banks said he told Adams earlier this year that he planned to retire by the end of the year.
His retirement will take effect on Dec. 31.
Banks touts accomplishments, Adams praises him
“I am incredibly proud of what we have accomplished during my tenure and the opportunity to work alongside such dedicated professionals to shape the future of education in our great city is one that I will always cherish. We have faced many challenges and made significant strides in improving the educational landscape for our students, families and educators,” Banks wrote. “Together we laid the groundwork to ensure every child can read, expanded special education services and gifted & talented programs, improved school food, welcomed over 45,000 migrant students and, through a series of innovative partnerships ensured that all students will graduate on a pathway to a rewarding career and long-term economic security, equipped to be a positive force for change.”
“Serving as Chancellor has been a profound honor and a deeply fulfilling experience. Thank you for the opportunity to serve, and for your support throughout my tenure. Please know that I will do everything possible to ensure a smooth transition. I am confident that NYC Public Schools will continue to grow, innovate and excel under the next Chancellor,” he added.
“I am immensely grateful and proud of the work accomplished in New York City Public Schools under Chancellor David Banks. In less than three years, our city’s public schools have transformed — from ensuring schools were safe and open coming out of the pandemic to a space that has increased our students’ reading scores, math scores, and graduation rates,” Mayor Eric Adams said. “We’ve implemented critical initiatives like ‘NYC Reads,’ ‘NYC Solves,’ and universal dyslexia screenings, while also ensuring a seamless and timely coordination with partners to welcome, enroll, and support thousands of newly-arriving students and their families on a citywide scale. We’ve done all this and more on behalf of nearly 1 million public school students, and Chancellor Banks was crucial to getting that done every day. On behalf of all New Yorkers, we thank Chancellor Banks for his service, and wish him well in his retirement at the end of the calendar year.”
Spate of top level departures amid several federal investigations
Banks did not cite the ongoing federal investigations into the Adams administration in his departure letter. But the home he shared with Wright was raided by federal authorities earlier this month.
Last week, Adams’ chief counsel Lisa Zornberg suddenly quit. She said she couldn’t do her job effectively amid the probe.
Days earlier, former NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban resigned after federal agents raided his home. And Interim NYPD Commissioner Tom Donlon, who took over the department after Caban, said federal agents raided his home, saying they were searching for documents that were in his possession for over 20 years and were unrelated to his work as police commissioner.
Laura Kavanagh, the FDNY’s first female commissioner, announced her departure in July.
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Washington — The man arrested after he was allegedly spotted by Secret Service with a high-powered rifle at a golf course owned by former President Donald Trump was charged with attempted assassination of a political figure.
A federal grand jury in Miami indicted Ryan Wesley Routh on Tuesday on a charge of attempting to kill Trump on Sept. 15, according to the Justice Department. The charge carries a maximum potential sentence of life in prison.
Routh was charged last week with two federal firearms charges. A Secret Service agent spotted him and the barrel of a gun in the bushes along the fence at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, while Trump was playing golf at the course.
No shots were fired at the former president, but the Secret Service agent fired at the suspect, who fled and was later arrested.
Months ago, according to a court filing, Routh had left a handwritten letter with a man that said: “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster.”
The court filing also revealed that Routh had a list of dates and places in his vehicle where Trump had appeared or was expected to appear, as well as a cellphone that had searched for directions from West Palm Beach to Mexico.
Sean “Diddy” Combs has been accused of raping a woman at a New York City recording studio with his bodyguard at the time and recording the alleged attack over 20 years ago in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The litigation comes about a week after Combs, 54, was indicted on federal charges alleging he used his business empire as a criminal enterprise, with prosecutors accusing him of sexually and physically abusing women through so-called “freak offs.” He faces charges including sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
He was denied bail twice after pleading not guilty in federal court in New York City.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, accuses him of raping Thalia Graves in 2001, when she was 25 and dating one of his employees. CBS News Los Angeles does not typically identify potential victims of sexual assault but Graves identified herself publicly Tuesday, speaking to reporters at a news conference in L.A. Tuesday alongside her attorney, Gloria Allred.
In court filings, the lawsuit alleges Combs and another man, described in the suit as his bodyguard and head of security at the time, allegedly gave her a drink “likely laced with a drug that eventually caused her briefly to lose consciousness” at a Bad Boy Records studio.
“She awoke to find herself bound and restrained,” the lawsuit alleges, saying Combs “mercilessly raped her.”
Two attorneys for Combs did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
Shareif Ziyadat /Getty Images for Sean “Diddy” Combs)
According to the lawsuit, Graves first learned that the alleged assault had been video-recorded on Nov. 27, 2023, and that Combs and the other man had allegedly shown the video to multiple other men — “seeking to publicly degrade and humiliate” both her and her boyfriend. That same month, Combs had reached a settlement agreement with singer Cassie Ventura.
It was reached just a day after Ventura filed a lawsuit accusing him of raping and physically abusing her over a period spanning years. At the time, Combs denied the allegations through an attorney.
“Just so we’re clear, a decision to settle a lawsuit, especially in 2023, is in no way an admission of wrongdoing,” Ben Brafman, an attorney for Combs, said in a statement to CBS News.
As she spoke to reporters Tuesday, Graves said the alleged attack — and recording of it — have left her “emotionally scarred” as she deals with conditions including PTSD, depression and anxiety as a result.
“It’s a pain that reaches into your very core of who you are,” she said through tears. “Being blamed, questioned and threatened has often made me feel worthless, isolated and sometimes responsible for what happened to me.”
The lawsuit alleges she has faced multiple threats that made her stay silent in the years since.
“For decades, she remained silent and did not report the crime out of fear that Defendants would use their power to ruin her life, as they had repeatedly, explicitly threatened to do,” the lawsuit states, adding that she “still lives in fear of Defendants.”
“On information and belief, Defendants continued to show the video of the rape to others over the years and through to the present and/or sold the video as pornography,” the lawsuit later alleges.
When Combs was indicted last week, federal prosecutors said his alleged crimes date back to 2008 and were part of a broader criminal enterprise that involved multiple other people.
“The indictment alleges that between at least 2008 and the present, Combs abused, threatened and coerced victims to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation and conceal his conduct,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams told reporters last week. “As alleged in the indictment, to carry out this conduct, Sean Combs led and participated in a racketeering conspiracy that used the business empire he controlled to carry out criminal activity.”
Williams said that federal agents raided Combs’ homes in Los Angeles and Miami earlier this year and discovered firearms, ammunition and other evidence. Combs has been accused of crimes such as trafficking, kidnapping and obstruction of justice.
Federal prosecutors have alleged he threatened victims and accused him of using recordings of alleged attacks as “collateral.”
“He used the embarrassing and sensitive recordings he made of the ‘freak offs’ as collateral against the victims, and the indictment alleges that he maintained control over the victims in several ways, including by giving them drugs, by giving and threatening to take away financial support or housing, by promising them career opportunities, by monitoring their whereabouts and even by dictating their physical appearance,” Williams said.
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