After fleeing unspeakable slaughter and sexual violence, a Rwandan beekeeper settled into a quiet life with his family in the Hamptons, resuming the humble vocation he had been forced to abandon when nearly a million of his countrymen and women were swiftly butchered.
But his new life on Long Island masked a dark secret, according to federal prosecutors.
Rather than fleeing the genocide, prosecutors say, the man, Faustin Nsabumukunzi, was an eager participant in it. He directed ethnic majority Hutus to kill minority Tutsis, personally attacked Tutsis with a club and ordered Hutu men to dispose of the bodies of dead Tutsis, referring to them as “trash” and “garbage.”
Then, he lied about his involvement in the bloodshed when he sought refugee status in the United States in 2003, and again when applied to become a permanent resident and citizen, according to prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York.
Mr. Nsabumukunzi was arrested Thursday morning in Bridgehampton, N.Y., on charges of immigration fraud. He faces as many as 30 years in prison if convicted. But he could also be deported to Rwanda, where he has been sought for nearly two decades.
Appearing before Judge Joanna Seybert in Central Islip, Mr. Nsabumukunzi, 65, wore a dark sweatshirt and jeans. He pleaded not guilty, with his son, Thierry, 38, attending in support, and was released on a $250,000 bond. The bond was posted by Steve Felsher, a man for whom Mr. Nsabumukunzi works as a gardener.
In arguing for his client’s release on bail, Evan Sugar, Mr. Nsabumukunzi’s lawyer, noted that he had no financial means to flee the country and suffered from arthritis.
“We’re talking about a 65-year-old with a broken body,” Mr. Sugar said.
The Rwandan genocide, one of modern history’s bloodiest systematic killings, arose from long-simmering tensions between the Hutus and the Tutsis. The slaughter began on April 7, 1994, after a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, both Hutu, was shot down as it landed in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital.
It remains unclear who ordered the assassination, but the Hutu-led government of Rwanda immediately blamed Tutsi rebels. Hutu radio announcers instructed their listeners to “exterminate the cockroaches” and “cut down the tall trees,” referring to Tutsis.
Over three months in 1994, Hutu men methodically hunted down Tutsi men and women. Hutus burned down the homes of Tutsis, hacked them to death with machetes and raped them en masse. By July, around 800,000 Tutsis had been killed.
In fall 2024, investigators traveled to Rwanda to interview witnesses to the ethnic cleansing, prosecutors said in court on Thursday. Those people told investigators that Mr. Nsabumukunzi was more than just a beekeeper: As an administrator for a municipality, Kibirizi, he had helped engineer the massacre.
“He was somewhat of a local figurehead,” said Samantha Alessi, an assistant U.S. attorney.
In the early days of the genocide, Mr. Nsabumukunzi assured Tutsis in public meetings that they would be safe from violence, prosecutors said, in order to keep them from fleeing. Then, he held private meetings with just Hutus, whom he directed to kill Tutsis, and he helped set up roadblocks outside the homes of Tutsis to keep them from escaping.
Two weeks after the genocide began, Mr. Nsabumukunzi directed a group of Hutu men to kill Tutsis who had gathered on the grounds of his administrative office. Later, prosecutors said, he encouraged the rape and sexual enslavement of Tutsi women.
In 2008, while living in the United States, Mr. Nsabumukunzi was convicted by a “community-based” Rwandan court and sentenced in absentia to life in prison. Six years later, the public prosecutor of Rwanda indicted him again on charges related to the genocide. In 2016, Rwanda’s Interpol bureau issued a notice for Mr. Nsabumukunzi.
Mr. Sugar said in court on Thursday that the American government’s case relied on evidence about an event in which facts are murky. He pointed out that Mr. Nsabumukunzi was never indicted by the United Nations international court for genocide.
Mr. Nsabumukunzi was profiled in a 2006 article by The New York Times, which depicted him as a refugee from the violence who had lived a relatively comfortable life before the genocide. In Rwanda, Mr. Nsabumukunzi oversaw 150 beekeepers and 1,500 hives, according to the article; on Long Island, he oversaw about 100 hives for the Hamptons Honey Company, which had hired him to scale up its production.
Gabriel Alfaya, the owner of Hamptons Honey since 2009, said he was unaware that Mr. Nsabumukunzi had worked for the company and had never met him.
Several people who fled Rwanda to other countries have been arrested on charges related to the killings.
Beatrice Munyenyezi, a Rwandan woman, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2013 by a federal judge in New Hampshire for not disclosing her involvement in the genocide, charges similar to Mr. Nsabumukunzi’s. She was deported to Rwanda in February, where she was swiftly sentenced to life in prison.
On Thursday morning, as Mr. Nsabumukunzi was read the charges during his arrest, he seemed to grasp the severity of his situation.
“I know I’m finished,” he said, according to prosecutors.
