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— A county sheriff in Maryland accused of making racist and anti-Semitic comments is stepping down after weeks of intense pressure to quit.

James Fitzgerald, a Democrat who is in his third term as the elected sheriff in Howard County, a mixed rural-suburban county straddling Baltimore and the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., will step down on Saturday, The Washington Post reported.

The resignation announcement Thursday in a news release from the county council came just moments after Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, said Fitzgerald should resign.

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Public protests also have called on Fitzgerald to leave and the county’s elected leaders have threatened impeachment, according to the Post.

The county’s Office of Human Rights had compiled a report alleging that Fitzgerald had frequently used the N-word to disparage blacks, referred derisively to women’s bodies and called a former county executive, Ken Ulman, “little Kenny Jew-boy,” the Post reported. The county executive is equivalent to a mayor.

At a Sept. 29 news conference, Fitzgerald referred to the report as “humbling, hurtful and disappointing to all involved,” but did not confirm that he had used the offensive language.

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