Mayor Lovely Warren, a groundbreaker as Rochester’s mayor, admitted Monday to breaching the state’s election law and, as part of a plea agreement, will resign from office by Dec. 1.

The plea deal heads off what was expected to be a month-long trial, while also resolving firearms and child endangerment charges Warren confronted in a separate criminal case.

The city’s first Black woman to be elected mayor, Warren’s tenure has been a roller coaster ride, highlighted by some successful commercial development throughout the community but marred by the criminal allegations that have now hounded her for a year.

In the end, it was the criminal allegations that determined her fate, with her pleading guilty to a single election law crime — admitting that she knowingly exceeded allowed campaign contribution limits during her 2017 re-election campaign. She admitted to a misdemeanor; a felony conviction would have included immediate removal from office and the likely loss of her law license.

Co-defendants Albert Jones Jr., her campaign treasurer, and Rosiland Brooks-Harris, the treasurer of the political action committee Warren for a Strong Rochester, pleaded guilty to the same crime. Brooks-Harris is also the city’s finance director.

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Both prosecutors and defense lawyers said they were prepared to go to trial, which would have had the three defendants facing a felony election law charge, as well as accusations that they were part of a felony scheme to defraud through illicit movement of money between the campaign committee and political action committee.

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Visiting Judge Thomas Leone, from Cayuga County, sentenced each of the three to a year-long conditional discharge. This means that they could face more serious penalties if they commit any more offenses during that year.

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Warren is expected to be replaced in December by Deputy Mayor James Smith. Then, come Jan. 1, City Councilman Malik Evans, who defeated Warren in the Democratic primary, is expected to assume office.

“Our democracy depends on fair elections,” County Legislator Rachel Barnhart, a city Democrat, said in a statement. {snip}

Barnhart and former Police Chief James Sheppard lost to Warren in the 2017 Democratic primary and complained to the state Board of Elections about alleged campaign finance violations with the mayor’s campaign. Those complaints mirrored in many ways the criminal allegations.

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The District Attorney’s Office has not specified the scope of the fraud it intended to allege, except to portray it as significant and in the “hundreds of thousands of dollars.” The PAC raised about $350,000.

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With a felony, Warren likely would have lost her law license. That is still an issue for a local attorney grievance committee, but a misdemeanor crime would typically involve an instance of “moral turpitude,” a crime so egregious it shocks the conscience, for the loss of the license.

Warren’s pension is also secure. There is not a loss of public pension with a misdemeanor, according to a spokeswoman for the state comptroller’s office.

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In July, a separate grand jury indicted Warren and her estranged husband, Timothy Granison, with criminal possession of a firearm — a felony — and two misdemeanor counts each of endangering the welfare of a child and failure to lock or secure firearms in a dwelling.

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The charges stem from a police raid of the home the couple shared at the time. Police were investigating what they alleged was a drug-trafficking network, in which her husband is charged. Warren is not implicated in that matter.

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Warren was accused of child endangerment because of her 10-year-old daughter’s presence in the home along with what prosecutors previously alleged were unsecured firearms.

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