Damian Williams

The SDNY U.S. Attorney has emerged as one of the country's gutsiest prosecutors and a huge potential headache for Mayor Adams.

- ERROL LOUIS

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.