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VOL. CLXIV . . No. 56,792
© 2015 The New York Times
NEW YORK, SUNDAY, MARCH 1, 2015
$6 beyond the greater New York metropolitan area.
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G.O.P. RACE STARTS
IN LAVISH HAUNTS
OF RICH DONORS
A TOP-DOLLAR CAMPAIGN
Contenders Follow Trail
of Resorts for Money,
Not for Votes
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
and JONATHAN MARTIN
CHANG W. LEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES
A Brutal Beating Wakes Attica’s Ghosts
A Prison Infamous for Bloodshed Faces a Reckoning as Guards Go on Trial
By TOM ROBBINS
ATTICA, N.Y. — On the evening of Aug. 9,
2011, one month before the 40th anniversary
of the bloody Attica prison riot, a guard in that
remote facility in western New York was distributing mail to inmates in C Block, one of
the vast tiers of cells nestled behind its towering 30-foot walls.
The prisoners were rowdy that night, talking loudly as they mingled on the gallery outside their cells, a State Police inquiry found.
Frustrated, an officer shouted into the din:
“Shut the [expletive] up.”
Normally, that would be enough to bring
quiet to C Block, where guards who work the
3 to 11 p.m. shift are known for strict, sometimes violent, enforcement of the rules. This
night, somewhere on the gallery, a prisoner
shouted back, bellowing “You shut the [expletive] up.” Emboldened, the shouter taunted
the officer with an obscene suggestion.
Inmates were immediately ordered to retreat to their cells and “lock in.” Thirty minutes later, three officers, led by a sergeant,
marched down the corridor. They stopped at
the cell of George Williams, a 29-year-old African-American from New Jersey who was
DAMON WINTER/THE NEW YORK TIMES
As an inmate, George Williams was beaten at Attica. From left, Officer Keith Swack, Sgt. Sean Warner and Officer Matthew Rademacher are charged.
serving a sentence of two to four years for
robbing two jewelry stores in Manhattan.
Mr. Williams had been transferred to Attica
that January following an altercation with
other inmates at a different facility. He had
just four months to serve before he was to be
released. He was doing his best to stay out of
trouble. His plan was to go home to New
Brunswick and try to find work as a barber.
That evening, Mr. Williams remembers, he
had been in his cell watching the rap stars Lil
Wayne and Young Jeezy on television, and
missed the shouting on the cellblock. The
guards ordered him to strip for a search and
then marched him down the hall to a darkened dayroom used for meetings and classes
for what they told him would be a urine test.
Mr. Williams is 5-foot-8, and a solid 170
pounds. But corrections officers tend toward
linebacker size, and the three officers towered over him. The smallest was Sgt. Sean
Warner, 37, at 5-foot-11, 240 pounds. Beside
him was Officer Keith Swack, 37, a burly
6-foot-3 and some 300 pounds. A third officer
was standing behind the cell door. Mr. Williams thought it was Officer Matthew Rademacher, 29, who had followed his father into
Continued on Page 18
PALM BEACH, Fla. — Instead
of the corn dogs and pork chops
on a stick ritually served up on
the hustings of Iowa, the latest
stop on the donor trail featured
meals of diver scallops and chocolate mousse. The setting was the
Breakers, a sprawling Italian
Renaissance-inspired hotel here,
where the cheapest available
rooms fetched $800 a night. And
for the half-dozen Republican
presidential candidates invited to
the annual winter meeting this
weekend of the Club for Growth,
an influential bloc of deep-pocketed conservatives, the prize was
not votes. It was money.
Long before the season of
baby-kissing and caucus-going
begins in early primary states, a
no less decisive series of contests
is playing out among the potential 2016 contenders along a trail
that traces the cold-weather destinations of the wealthy and private-jet-equipped. In one resort
town after another — Rancho Mirage, Calif.; Sea Island, Ga.; Las
Vegas — the candidates are making their cases to exclusive gatherings of donors whose wealth,
fully unleashed by the Supreme
Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, has granted them the kind
of influence and convening power
once held by urban political
bosses and party chairmen.
Even a single deep-pocketed
donor can now summon virtually
the entire field of candidates. No
fewer than 11 Republican White
House hopefuls will fly to Iowa
this week to attend the Iowa Agriculture Summit organized by
Bruce Rastetter, a businessman
and prominent “super PAC” donor. Each will submit to questions from Mr. Rastetter, who
said he wanted the candidates to
educate themselves on agriculture policy.
“I get it that it’s helpful that
I’ve given nationally and been
helpful in Iowa to different candidates,” said Mr. Rastetter, whose
business interests range from
meat processing to ethanol production, and who is not yet backContinued on Page 16
U.S. Moves to Deport Bosnians; Nearly Halted in Sierra Leone,
300 Linked to ’90s War Crimes Ebola Makes Comeback by Sea
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON — Immigration officials are moving to deport
at least 150 Bosnians living in the
United States who they believe
took part in war crimes and “ethnic cleansing” during the bitter
conflict that raged in the former
Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
In all, officials have identified
about 300 immigrants who they
believe concealed their involvement in wartime atrocities when
they came to the United States as
part of a wave of Bosnian war refugees fleeing the violence there.
With more records from Bosnia
becoming available, the officials
said the number of suspects
could eventually top 600.
“The more we dig, the more
documents we find,” said Michael
MacQueen, an Immigration and
Customs Enforcement historian
who has led many investigations
in the agency’s war crimes section. The accused immigrants,
many of them former soldiers
from Bosnia, include a soccer
coach in Virginia, a metal worker
in Ohio and four hotel casino
workers in Las Vegas.
The effort to identify suspects
included an appeal broadcast to
Bosnians around the world in
February, urging witnesses to
come forward with any information about war crimes. Bosnians
should be confident that “justice
can be served in the United
States despite the fact that many
years have gone by and that the
Continued on Page 13
By SHERI FINK
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone —
It seemed as if the Ebola crisis
was abating.
New cases were plummeting.
The president lifted travel restrictions, and schools were to reopen. A local politician announced on the radio that two 21day incubation cycles had passed
with no new infections in his
Freetown neighborhood. The
country, many health officials
said, was “on the road to zero.”
Then Ebola washed in from the
sea.
Sick fishermen came ashore in
early February to the packed
wharf-side slums that surround
the country’s fanciest hotels,
which were filled with public
health
workers.
Volunteers
NATIONAL 14-21
fanned out to contain the outbreak, but the virus jumped quarantine lines and cascaded into
the countryside, bringing dozens
of new infections and deaths.
“We worked so hard,” said Emmanuel Conteh, an Ebola response coordinator in a rural district. “It is a shame to all of us.”
Public health experts preparing for an international conference on Ebola on Tuesday seem
to have no doubt that the disease
can be vanquished in the West
African countries ravaged by it in
the last year. But the steep downward trajectory of new cases late
last year and into January did not
lead to the end of the epidemic.
In Sierra Leone, the hardest hit
Continued on Page 12
SERGEI KARPUKHIN/REUTERS
Fear and Intrigue in Russia
A Russian woman visited the spot where Boris Y. Nemtsov, a
critic of the Kremlin, was shot to death in Moscow. Page 10.
OBITUARIES 21-23
SPORTSSUNDAY
SUNDAY REVIEW
Maureen Dowd
Bracing for Health Law Ruling
Buffett Knows, and Isn’t Telling
A ’90s Knicks Stalwart Is Dead
Keep That Game Moving
If the Supreme Court limits insurance
subsidies, no state would be more affected than Florida, which has the most AfPAGE 14
fordable Care Act enrollees.
In his annual letter to shareholders,
Warren Buffett again said his successor
at Berkshire Hathaway had been found,
PAGE 16
though he did not say who.
Anthony Mason, whose bruising style of
play epitomized the Knicks of the 1990s,
died in Manhattan. He was 48 and had
been treated for a heart ailment. PAGE 21
In an era of multiple entertainment options and shorter attention spans, sports
are increasingly focused on streamlinPAGE 1
ing their formats.
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