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Journalism of Courage
The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has filed an indictment in the district court of New York, accusing an Indian national named Nikhil Gupta and an Indian government employee of allegedly plotting to assassinate Khalistan separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on US soil.
The case against Gupta and the unnamed government officer was filed by federal prosecutor Damian Williams (43) on behalf of the US government.
Williams, attorney for the Southern District of New York, is Manhattan’s most powerful law enforcement officer for the US government. According to the DoJ website, in this capacity, he oversees the investigation and prosecution of all federal crimes and litigation of civil matters involving the United States. The first Black person to lead the Southern District in its 233-year history, Williams continues its legacy of handling complex, high-profile cases.
He recently became a household name in the US through his team’s investigation of Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which went bankrupt in November 2022. This month, Williams’ team managed to get Bankman-Fried convicted by a jury on all seven counts he faced, including conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Issuing a statement after the conviction, Williams had said, “When I became US Attorney, I promised we would be relentless in rooting out corruption in our financial markets. This is what relentless looks like. This case moved at lightning speed — that was not a coincidence, that was a choice. This case is also a warning to every fraudster who thinks they’re untouchable, that their crimes are too complex for us to catch, that they are too powerful to prosecute, or that they are clever enough to talk their way out of it if caught.”
Apart from the conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried, which is being touted as a career-defining case for Williams, the Southern District of New York under his leadership also successfully concluded its case against Ghislaine Maxwell, a former socialite and longtime associate of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell was found guilty of grooming and sex trafficking girls for abuse by the paedophile financier Epstein, resulting in a 20-year prison sentence
Academic, family background
Born in Brooklyn to parents who immigrated from Jamaica in the early 1970s, Williams was raised in Atlanta, where his family moved while he was still an infant. His parents met as students at Howard University in Washington, where his father studied medicine and his mother studied nursing.
Williams is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School, holding a Bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard. Additionally, at the University of Cambridge, he obtained a master’s degree in international relations. During his time at Yale, he served as the editor of The Yale Law Journal.
According to a profile of William’s in the New Republic Magazine, “He (Williams) made political connections early, working as a field organizer on John Kerry’s 2004 campaign, as an assistant to Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe, and as a volunteer on Harold Ford Jr.’s 2006 Senate campaign. Williams is friends with Natalie Portman—they met in college, volunteering for the same arts charity—and has been described by friends as disciplined, frugal, and circumspect, someone who chooses his words carefully.”
