Today Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced he will not seek a third term for Philadelphia's top law enforcement official.
Williams called the choice a "difficult decision" that was in the best interests of the office and his family.
Williams faced a series of ethics controversies, including a failure to report income and gifts that resulted in a record fine last month by the Philadelphia Board of Ethics.
"I have made regrettable mistakes in my personal life and personal financial life that cast an unnecessary shadow" over the work of the District Attorney's Office, Williams said Friday.
He said his decisions to accept gifts and not report them brought "shame" and "embarrassment" to the office.
"For this, I will always hold deep regret in my heart," Williams said. He has previously said that friends helped him during a rough financial period during and after his divorce, and has stressed that he took no official action in return for the gifts.
Williams said he did not want to stand in the way of the office's work, and spent the first part of Friday's news conference highlighting some of its accomplishments during his tenure: redesigning the charging unit, receiving national praise for its community-based prosecution unit, establishing programs to divert non-violent offenders and improving felony conviction rates.
The Inquirer first reported in August 2015 that the FBI and IRS, working in a joint investigation with a federal grand jury, had subpoenaed financial records from the political action committee Williams used to run for office in 2005, 2009 and 2013.
That investigations, according to sources, was looking at Williams’ personal and political finances.
Controversy engulfed Williams in August 2016 when he amended his statements of financial interests for 2010 to 2015, listing $160,500 in previously undisclosed gifts. That included $45,000 in home repairs, Eagles game-day sideline passes, vacation airfare and lodging, cash, and gift cards.
The gifts have prompted the FBI to interview members of the prosecutor's staff and at least one of the gift-givers. A federal probe is also underway into a nonprofit he founded.
Williams' agreement with the Ethics Board to pay the $62,000 fine, the largest ever imposed by the decade-old board, included another $15,666 in previously undisclosed gifts and noted that some came from defense attorneys with cases being prosecuted by Williams’ office. He acknowledged having failed to report five sources of income and 89 gifts on city financial statements over a six-year period, and was required to pay the city $2,840, the value of five gifts that the city's Ethics Code prohibits.
Williams has apologized to his staff for "adverse publicity" generated by the gifts.
His decision to call off the reelection campaign appeared somewhat out of the blue: Just Wednesday, Williams had insisted at an unrelated press conference that he would not resign.
Five Democrats had already launched campaigns against Williams, vying to unseat him in the May 16 primary: Michael Untermeyer, a former city and state prosecutor who is now a real estate investor; Rich Negrin, a former city prosecutor who served as managing director under Mayor Michael A. Nutter; Teresa Carr Deni, a former Municipal Court judge who served 21 years on the bench; Joe Khan, a former city and federal prosecutor; and Lawrence Krasner, a civil rights lawyer and death-penalty opponent.
One Republican, Beth Grossman, has entered the race. The 21-year veteran of the District Attorney's Office is now in private practice.