A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli is unlawfully running the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles and barred him from two criminal cases.

Senior U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright found that Essayli “is unlawfully serving as a ‘de facto’ United States Attorney,” according to the court’s order. 

The judge wrote that the disqualification “shall not take immediate effect” and gave the Department of Justice five business days to request a stay pending appeal. 

In a post on X, Essayli made it clear that he is not moving from his position for the time being. 

"Just so there's no confusion, today's order is stayed and has no immediate effect. I remain First Assistant U.S. Attorney and continue running the office,” he wrote. “The Supreme Court will ultimately decide this matter.”

The ruling came in two cases, U.S. v. Ramirez and U.S. v. Tran. Ramirez was charged with possessing a firearm as a felon. Tran is alleged to have possessed stolen property, according to CBS Los Angeles.

The prosecutions Seabright referred to were for Jaime Hector Ramirez, who is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition and Tu Anh Tran, who is charged with possessing property stolen from interstate or foreign shipment. 

Seabright made a similar ruling last year while Essayli was serving as acting U.S. Attorney. The court allowed Essayli to continue to serve as first assistant U.S. attorney after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi named him to the position, which heads the office in lieu of a chief federal prosecutor.

Since last year, appeals courts have ruled in similar cases where the Trump administration appointed prosecutors as first assistant U.S. attorneys and then elevated them to acting U.S. attorney. The panels ruled that those prosecutors, John Sarcone in Albany and Sigal Chattah in Nevada, were unlawfully appointed because they were not serving as first assistant when the U.S. attorney position became vacant, as Seabright's latest ruling noted.

The federal government appealed these cases to the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month.

This battle goes back to early 2025, when then-Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Essayli as interim U.S. attorney under a federal law that limits such appointments to 120 days. About three months later, she named him a special attorney and first assistant U.S. attorney. 

Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a revised order to rectify the issue by withholding three specific powers from Essayli. But the judge still noted that “withholding the three specific statutory powers mentioned in the revised designation order in reality withholds nothing—these powers could not have been delegated in the first instance.”

This is not the first time Seabright has ruled against Essayli's role. Last October, he found Essayli was unlawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney but allowed him to stay on as first assistant, according to that earlier order. The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later ruled against a similar arrangement for Alina Habba in New Jersey.

The question appears headed to the Supreme Court. The government asked the justices on September 9 to take up the Jackson case.

As of the court's latest docket entry, the government had not yet filed an appeal or a stay motion. The deadline to ask for a stay falls around November 3.