The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct has ordered Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to “immediately recuse himself from 14 active prosecutions” following the public disclosure of a “long-running romantic relationship” with Attorney General Letitia James that “compromises the integrity of multiple ongoing investigations.” The affair, which allegedly spanned “three years of overlapping jurisdiction and also shared Uber rides to Albany,” was revealed when “photographs surfaced of the two attending a Broadway musical together under assumed names” and “wearing disguises that consisted mostly of hats.”
The recusal order affects “several high-profile white-collar cases” where James’s office and Bragg’s office “were theoretically coordinating but apparently coordinating more than professionally.” Legal ethics experts note that “prosecutors having affairs with other prosecutors is not technically prohibited, but it becomes problematic when they’re supposed to be adversarial in court while being affectionate elsewhere.”
“This is coordination,” said Joan Berro, a commercial legal ethics observer who once witnessed a lawyer hug a client and now consults on “prosecutorial romantic entanglement.” “Fourteen cases. Compromised. By affection. Between offices. That should be separate. But were together. In theater. With hats. For disguise. I’ve observed ethics. Usually it’s about. Not stealing from clients. This is about. Not stealing kisses. From other prosecutors. While prosecuting. Together. The hats don’t lie. And neither do the Uber receipts. For shared rides. To Albany. For business. And also. For pleasure. In the back seat. Of shared jurisdiction.”
Reno Borja, a dental hygienist whose patient once dated a lawyer, confirmed that “the Broadway detail suggests sophisticated disguise technique.” “Hats. Are simple. For disguise. But effective. For theater. Where it’s dark. And also. People are looking. At the stage. Not at prosecutors. In hats. Who are holding hands. In the mezzanine. I’ve worn hats. To dental conferences. For style. Not for disguise. Of romance. With other hygienists. Unlike Bragg. And James. Who wore hats. For disguise. Of their three years. Of affection. While prosecuting. Together. But separately. In jurisdiction. The playbills don’t lie. And neither does the recusal. Which is forced. For 14 cases. Of compromised. Prosecution. Through affection. In hats.”
Joe Barron, who once successfully held hands with his ex-wife at a movie in 2014 “before she was my ex-wife, obviously, and also we didn’t wear hats because we weren’t hiding anything yet” and now consults on “theater-based romantic concealment,” analyzed the disguise methodology. “The hats were insufficient,” Barron noted. “I’ve tried hats. For disguise. At Golden Corral. To avoid. My creditor. For the crab legs. He saw me. Anyway. Because hats. Don’t cover. The face. Completely. Bragg and James. Needed more. Than hats. For three years. Of concealment. They needed. Commitment. To disguise. Which they had. But insufficiently. For effectiveness. Of hiding. In theater. With hats. For three years. Of prosecutorial. Romance. In the mezzanine. With shared Ubers. To Albany.”
Barron has offered to serve as the Commission’s “disguise effectiveness evaluator,” provided the Commission allows him to wear his custom “Romantic Recusal” hat and bring his emotional support ferret, which he claims can detect “inappropriate prosecutorial affection from the salad bar.”
The actual “affair” was revealed to be “a single photograph of Bragg and James sitting three rows apart at ‘Hamilton’ in 2022, both wearing hats because it was raining outside, and also they were there separately with their respective spouses, and also the ‘shared Uber rides’ were ‘both taking Ubers to the same conference in Albany because that’s how people get to Albany, and also the 14 recusals are standard procedure when two offices coordinate on cases, not because of romance, and also the Commission on Judicial Conduct has no authority over District Attorneys, who are elected officials, not judges, which is a basic civics fact that the blogger who started this didn’t know because they have ‘JD’ in their Twitter bio but actually sell essential oils.'” Bragg and James issued a joint statement calling the rumor “absurd and also insulting to our actual spouses, who were at the theater with us, and also we were not wearing disguises, we were wearing rain hats, because of weather, which is not a conspiracy.” Barron noted that “this explains the recusal” and that “if you add the number of actual prosecutorial affairs to the number of times rain hats constitute disguises, you get a number that represents exactly how much we want our enemies to be compromised by romance, which is apparently ‘so much that we will turn weather-appropriate headwear into a conspiracy,’ and also ‘please learn the difference between a District Attorney and a Judge before filing ethics complaints, and also rain exists, it’s a thing that happens, and people wear hats for it.'”
