encounter Dec. 20, 2023
The Relentless Damian WilliamsThe SDNY U.S. Attorney is one of the country’s gutsiest prosecutors —and a potential headache for Eric Adams.
Portrait of Errol Louis By Errol Louis, a columnist for New York Magazine
When a jury found the cryptocurrency crook Sam Bankman-Fried guilty of money laundering and fraud in November, Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, did something unusual. Standing in front of the federal courthouse on Pearl Street with a posse of unsmiling aides, Williams departed from his normally reserved demeanor to read the riot act to would-be criminals. “When I became U.S. Attorney, I promised that we would be relentless in rooting out corruption in our financial markets,” he said. “This is what relentless looks like.”
It was a coming-out moment for an official who, after two years of quietly leading the most powerful prosecutorial office in America, is getting comfortable in the spotlight. “There should not be two standards of justice in this country, one for blue-collar crime and one for white-collar crime,” Williams told me, sitting in his spacious office with a grand waterfront view of the Brooklyn Bridge. “I have always bristled at the expectation that white-collar criminals should get white-glove treatment.”
The Southern District of New York is only half-jokingly dubbed the Sovereign District of New York. It has a reputation for acting independently of the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., and tackling high-profile cases involving not only financial swindlers like SBF but also terrorist attackers, violent drug syndicates, organized-crime bosses, and ethically challenged politicians — with the last, in particular, lately becoming a significant focus for Williams’s office.
Last year, Williams indicted the sitting lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin, for allegedly taking bribes from a Harlem real-estate operator, prompting Benjamin’s resignation. In September, SDNY indicted Senator Robert Menendez on bribery charges. Two months later, Williams indicted an Indian citizen on suspicion of involvement in a scheme by the Indian
government to assassinate a U.S. citizen — a case that could trigger a major diplomatic clash between the two countries.
And in November, FBI agents seized electronic devices belonging to Eric Adams and searched the home of his chief fundraiser in what appears to be a broad investigation of possible criminality in the mayor’s 2021 campaign, including pay-to-play arrangements with foreign donors. The investigation featured a dramatic face-off in which federal agents confronted Adams on a Manhattan sidewalk and ordered his NYPD security detail to stand aside while the FBI hopped into the mayor’s SUV and took two of his phones. While SDNY declined to comment on or confirm its involvement in the investigation, Adams’s chief counsel told reporters in November that they have been in touch with SDNY.
Now, as the city’s political circles brace for a possible indictment of the mayor, all eyes are on Williams, who has used his moment in the headlines to emphasize that while he may speak softly, he carries a big stick. The two men at the center of this potential clash could not be more different — one a disciplined straight shooter, the other a charismatic showman — even if both are pathbreaking Black officials who rose through the ranks of law enforcement.