NY Deputy Mayor, an Ex-Prosecutor, Resigns After Domestic Assault ‘Misunderstanding’
A former prosecutor who served as New York’s deputy mayor for operations resigned from his post days after his arrest based on allegations he assaulted his wife in a domestic dispute.
Stephen Goldsmith resigned on Aug. 4 after Washington, D.C., police arrested him based on an accusation of “simple assault domestic violence,” the New York Post reports. Goldsmith said he resigned to avoid becoming a distraction, though his wife, Margaret, later affirmed under oath that there was no violence.
The Post quoted from the police report, which accused Goldsmith of shoving his wife into the kitchen counter, grabbing the phone from her as she tried to call police, and holding on to her until she dug her nails into him. The report says Margaret Goldsmith, who suffers from lupus, yelled during the argument, “I should have put a bullet through you years ago!”
Prosecutors did not press charges after Margaret Goldsmith declined to pursue the case, the story says. “There was no domestic violence that occurred between my husband and myself,” she told the Post. “Nor has there ever been in the history of the marriage.” The arrest, she said, was “an enormous misunderstanding.”
Stephen Goldsmith was formerly the mayor of Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Star reports, and had worked as a prosecutor earlier in his career, according to an Indianapolis Star “fact file.” A recent Indianapolis Star story also identifies Goldsmith as a former partner at Baker & Daniels. He had an academic post at Harvard before joining the Bloomberg administration, according to the Star and the New York Times City Room blog.
