David C. Banks will step down as the New York City schools chancellor on Oct. 16, months earlier than he had previously said he would, City Hall announced on Wednesday.
In recent weeks, Mr. Banks has been swept up in a wide-ranging corruption scandal, which has resulted in the indictment of Mayor Eric Adams and has also involved Mr. Banks’s brothers Philip Banks III and Terence Banks, and his wife, Sheena Wright, the first deputy mayor, as well as other members of the mayor’s inner circle.
The Banks brothers and Ms. Wright had their phones seized by federal agents in early September as part of an investigation into a consulting firm run by Terence Banks.
The announcement on Wednesday came just hours after federal prosecutors told a judge that they might bring additional charges against the mayor and that charges against other people were likely. The chancellor has not been charged with any crimes and has maintained that he has done nothing wrong.
In a statement on Wednesday, he did not address the change in timing of his departure from the role, but he reiterated that he had been told that he was not a target of the federal investigation involving the mayor.
“I have conducted myself with integrity for almost 40 years, educating New York City’s young students,” he said. “My record and my reputation speaks for itself.”
Mr. Banks joined the police commissioner and the city’s top lawyer in announcing in recent weeks that they were stepping down, as the investigations mount.
When Mr. Banks said last week that he would step down, he was adamant that it was a long-planned move. Melissa Aviles-Ramos, a top deputy and his former chief of staff, was quickly named as the next chancellor and was set to take over in January.
“From day one, this administration has continued to prioritize the needs of our students,” Amaris Cockfield, a City Hall spokeswoman, said in a statement on Wednesday. “In advancing this mission, it became clear that our students will be best served by having the same leadership through as much of the school year as possible, rather than changing chancellors halfway through.”
Mr. Banks and Ms. Wright were married last weekend in Martha’s Vineyard. The marriage — the culmination of a yearslong relationship — could allow the couple to claim spousal privilege, which would grant them the right to decline to testify against each other in court, legal experts said.
Mr. Banks had long said that the schools chancellor position was the one job that he always wanted. He assumed the post soon after Mayor Adams took office and saw the schools system through an overhaul of the reading curriculum, the signature effort of his tenure.
At the annual State of Our Schools Address in late September, Mr. Banks appeared at turns defiant and introspective. He requested that a school choir perform his favorite song — “Saturn” by Stevie Wonder — and asked those gathered to join him in reciting his favorite poem, “Invictus.”
He had the crowd recite the last line twice: “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”
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