Damian Williams (lawyer)

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Damian Williams
Damian Williams United States Attorney (cropped).jpg
United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York
Assumed office
October 10, 2021
Appointed byJoe Biden
Preceded byAudrey Strauss
Personal details
Born
Andre Damian Williams Jr.

1980 (age 41–42)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
EducationHarvard University (AB)
Emmanuel College, Cambridge (MPhil)
Yale University (JD)

Andre Damian Williams Jr (born 1980)[1] is an American lawyer who is the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He is the first African-American U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.[2]

Early life and education[]

Williams was born in Brooklyn, New York City and raised in the Atlanta metropolitan area, the son of Jamaican immigrants.[3] His parents are divorced.[2] He attended Woodward Academy for high school where he was student body president in his final year.[2] He received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from Harvard University in 2002, a Master of Philosophy in international relations from the Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 2003, and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 2007,[4] where he was also an editor of the Yale Law Journal.[5] One of his essays about improving voting rights after Hurricane Katrina was published in the Yale Law Journal in 2007.[2][6]

Career[]

Prior to starting law school, Williams worked for John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and South Carolina and as a "body man" for the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe.[2] Following the first year of law school, Williams clerked for the office of United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Williams began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Merrick Garland of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2007 to 2008. He then served as a law clerk for Justice John Paul Stevens of the United States Supreme Court from 2008 to 2009. From 2009 to 2012, he was a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. From 2012 to 2021, he served as an assistant United States attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. In the role, he served as a chief of the securities and commodities fraud task force from 2018 to 2021.[4]

In 2018, Williams helped secure the conviction of Sheldon Silver, the former speaker of the New York State Assembly.[7]

U.S. Attorney[]

In March 2021, Senator Chuck Schumer recommended Williams to be the next U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.[3] On August 10, 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Williams to serve in the role.[7][8]

On September 30, 2021, his nomination was reported out of committee by voice vote.[9] On October 5, 2021, Williams was confirmed in the Senate by voice vote.[2][10] He became the first African-American U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and, as of October 2021, was one of seven African-Americans among 232 assistant U.S. attorneys and executives in the district.[2][11][12] He was sworn into office on October 10, 2021.[13] Upon his confirmation, Williams was slated to oversee cases including the trial of Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell and the case of Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, who was charged with committing the 2017 New York City truck attack.[7]

Personal life[]

The Williams family is from Frome, a sugar producing region in Westmoreland, Jamaica.[5][14] Williams married academic and fellow Harvard graduate, Jennifer Wynn, in 2012 in Manhattan, five years after they met on a bus trip from Washington to New York.[2][15]

References[]

  1. ^ "Questionairre for Non-Judicial Nominees" (PDF). United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Retrieved October 8, 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Weiser, Benjamin (October 7, 2021). "For the First Time in 232 Years, a Black Prosecutor Leads a Storied Office". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 7, 2021.
  3. ^ a b Sommerfeldt, Chris; Goldberg, Noah (August 10, 2021). "Schumer asks Biden to nominate first-ever Black Manhattan U.S. attorney". nydailynews.com. Retrieved August 11, 2021.
  4. ^ a b "President Biden Announces Eight Nominees to Serve as U.S. Attorneys" (Press release). Washington, D.C.: The White House. August 10, 2021. Retrieved August 10, 2021. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  5. ^ a b "Meet the Fellows | Damian Williams". www.pdsoros.org. Retrieved August 12, 2021.
  6. ^ Williams, Damian. "Reconstructing Section 5: A Post-Katrina Proposal for Voting Rights Act Reform". www.yalelawjournal.org. Retrieved October 13, 2021.
  7. ^ a b c Kanno-Youngs, Zolan (August 10, 2021). "Biden Nominates Damian Williams as U.S. Attorney in Manhattan". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 12, 2021.
  8. ^ "Nominations Sent to the Senate" (Press release). Washington, D.C.: The White House. August 11, 2021. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  9. ^ "Senate Judiciary Committee Advances Latest Slate of U.S. Attorney Nominations" (Press release). United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. September 30, 2021. Retrieved October 7, 2021.
  10. ^ "PN1038 - Nomination of Damian Williams for Department of Justice, 117th Congress (2021-2022)". www.congress.gov. October 5, 2021. Retrieved October 7, 2021.
  11. ^ Weiser, Benjamin (March 23, 2021). "Manhattan Is On Track to Have Its First Black U.S. Attorney". The New York Times. Retrieved August 11, 2021.
  12. ^ Castronuovo, Celine (August 10, 2021). "Biden taps Damian Williams as US attorney for Manhattan". TheHill. Retrieved August 10, 2021.
  13. ^ Berthelsen, Christian (October 11, 2021). "Wall Street Enforcer Becomes First Black U.S. Attorney for Manhattan". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved October 12, 2021.
  14. ^ "Jamaican, Damian Williams Tapped to Head U.S. Attorney's Office in New York". South Florida Caribbean News. April 4, 2021. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
  15. ^ "Jennifer Wynn and Damian Williams". The New York Times. July 29, 2012. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 12, 2021.
Legal offices
Preceded by United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York
2021–present 		Incumbent
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