San Francisco Supervisor Ed Jew, charged with demanding bribes from businesspersons and lying about where he lives to run for office has agreed to resign in a deal with the city, officials announced today at a City Hall news conference.

“It's an important day to get behind us. It's long overdue, I wish he would have done this months ago. We could have avoided the time, energy and money that we invested through this process,” Mayor Gavin Newsom told the Associated Press during an interview.

In exchange for his resignation, city officials decided to drop their ethic investigation and a lawsuit destined to remove him from the Board of Superiors.

Mayor Newsom filed the charges of misconduct on Sept. 25 to the San Francisco Ethics Commission. Jew pleaded not guilty of election fraud by lying about living in San Francisco to qualify to represent the city’s western neighborhoods.

On November 1, City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed a civil action to the San Francisco Superior Court against Jew. He pleaded not guilty in federal court to bribery extortion and fraud for allegedly demanding $80,000 from fast food restaurant owners to make help expedite permits and other business with the planning department.

In his statement, Jew said he decided to resign because the cost of defending the civil and criminal cases was too much to bear. He also added that he is moving his family to San Mateo because his wife had breast cancer and wanted to be closer to her mother and sisters. His resignation is effective Friday at noon.

Mayor Newsom said he hoped the resignation would restore any of the public’s trust that had eroded under the fraud and bribery allegations.

“This is not about Ed Jew. This is about the reputation of the political process. It's about everybody else out there who's tried to do the right thing in the political process who has been cast in a negative light by the activities alleged here,” Newsom said.

Neither Jew, not his attorney, Stuart Hanlon could be reached for comments.