The resignation deepens a crisis at the Justice Department sparked by a demand to dismiss criminal charges against New York City’s mayor.

NEW YORK — Hagan Scotten, the lead prosecutor in Mayor Eric Adams’s federal corruption case, has quit over the Justice Department’s demand that the case be dismissed, calling any lawyer who would move in court to toss the matter a “fool” or “coward,” according to a copy of a letter obtained Friday.

The indictment on corruption and fraud charges was the first against a sitting mayor in modern New York City history.