#Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance won’t seek reelection

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance will not seek re-election to a fourth term, he announced Friday morning.

“Representing the People of New York during this pivotal era for our city and our justice system has been the privilege of a lifetime,” Vance, who first ran for the position in 2009, said in a memo to prosecutors and staff. “Working in partnership with Manhattan communities, the D.A.’s Office we built together over the last decade has taken us beyond the ambitious blueprint we laid out in 2009.”

“One, we built safer and stronger communities — not just by winning in court, but by making sustained investments in our neighborhoods so that fewer people became involved in the justice system in the first place,” Vance said. “Two, we made enduring, systemic reforms — using the power of our discretion to massively reduce our criminal justice footprint and the inequities that underlie unnecessary prosecutions.”

“And three, we modernized our office to future-proof our neighbors against cybercrime, terrorism, trafficking, and other 21st-century threats. Together, we took one of the great public law offices of the 20th century and transformed it for the 21st.”

Vance, 66, said he never imagined himself as a DA for decades like his predecessors — and never considered the position his last job, “even though it’s the best job and biggest honor I’ll ever have.”

Vance’s office secured a sex crimes conviction against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.

And he won a court battle last year in which former President Donald Trump’s tax returns and related records were turned over to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as part of a probe into alleged bank fraud by the Trump Organization and hush-money payments to two women.

Trump has railed against Vance’s investigation, calling it a “continuation of the worst witch hunt in American history.”