Damian Williams, SDNY’s first black American prosecutor



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During its long history, Southern District alumni continued to serve on the Supreme Court, serving as United States Attorney General, Secretaries of War and Homeland Security, Director of the FBI, Commissioner of Police, Manhattan District Attorney, and Mayor. of New York (M. Giuliani). Yet another, who served in the 1880s, went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

But the office has never been run by a black man.

“It’s not just that Damian is going to be a black American lawyer,” said Martin S. Bell, a former Southern District attorney who is also black. “He is also someone who offers increased potential for thought and creativity when it comes to broader criminal justice issues – and the office’s ability to be credible with a wealthy, large and rich constituency. diverse New Yorkers. “

Mr. Williams was born in Brooklyn, but grew up in the Atlanta area, where his family moved when he was a baby. Her parents, immigrants from Jamaica in the early 1970s, met while they were students at Howard University in Washington, where her father was studying medicine and her mother was a nurse.

He attended a private school, Woodward Academy, excelling in his studies and serving as student body president during his final year of high school.

At Harvard, Mr. Williams majored in economics; at the University of Cambridge he obtained a master’s degree in international relations.

He joined the Kerry campaign in August 2003, first working in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and later in South Carolina. In the spring of 2004, a few months away from law school, he was hired by Terry McAuliffe, then chairman of the Democratic National Committee, as his “body man” – his driver, his executive assistant and one of his. closest collaborators.

“I threw him so hard,” Mr. McAuliffe said. “Never shaken, always smiling, solid as a rock. “

But at the end of July, Mr Williams was devastated when his older sister, Tiffani Simone Williams, 25, to whom he was devoted, died suddenly in Atlanta from an infection after a root canal treatment.

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