We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

“URGENT ACTION” FOR MDC BROOKLYN

Last month, U.S. District Judge Gary Brown of the Eastern District of New York sentenced 74-year-old Daniel Colucci to nine months in prison for a tax crime, conditioned on the Federal Bureau of Prisons not designating him to serve it at MDC Brooklyn, a BOP facility used largely for presentence detainees.

It’s a facility Judge Brown described as being “dangerous [and] barbaric.” It’s also the new home for Sean “Diddy” Combs, 

The Judge apparently struck a nerve. Last week, BOP spokeswoman Randilee Giamusso told the New York Daily News, “Effective since August, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has temporarily paused all initial designations to the minimum security cadre component of MDC Brooklyn.” As of now, only 42 of the 1,200 MDC inmates are serving sentences at the facility.

Judge Brown’s opinion, which detailed conditions at MDC Brooklyn – including lengthy lockdowns, vicious assaults and significant delays in providing medical care – came several weeks after an MDC inmate was killed in a fight there. As a result of the opinion, Colucci was sent to FMC Devens.

The new policy was revealed during a September 12th sentencing of Stephen Mead in the Eastern District of New York. During the hearing, Assistant US Attorney Doug Pravda told the Court that the BOP designation policy “had recently changed, and MDC was broadly off the table,” Corrections1 reported.

Defense attorney Noam Biale, representing a pretrial inmate who did not receive his medication after an emergency appendix procedure, was quoted by the Daily News as having said “if both judges and the BOP recognize it’s not an appropriate place for people to serve their sentences, how can it be appropriate to jail people who are presumed innocent there?”

The BOP has not indicated when or if MDC Brooklyn might resume accepting sentenced inmates. Meanwhile, MDC Brooklyn is getting special attention even as a high-profile music celebrity was detained there instead of being bonded out.

BOP last week said it has cut inmate population at the MDC by 25% and increased staffing by about 20% to 469 employees, with 157 vacancies left. Before the hiring surge, the facility was at about 55% staffing, according to court filings.

An unidentified senior BOP official told The Associated Press that members of its Urgent Action Team, a group of senior officials focused on increasing facility staffing levels and ensuring adequate repairs, “have made repeated visits to MDC Brooklyn and… are giving the jail ‘sustained attention’ and ‘sustained leadership focus to mitigate issues at the lockup,” AP quoted the official as saying. The AP said the team is working to remedy “more than 700 backlogged maintenance requests and answering judges’ concerns.”

Two weeks ago, I reported that nine FCI Waseca inmates had been hospitalized for adverse reactions to drug use. Last week, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported that Waseca has been under lockdown for the past two weeks because of the incident, which also resulted in two BOP employees being sent to a hospital for potential drug exposure.

In an email sent to the newspaper by a BOP official, the hospitalized employees are back at work and the inmates have returned to the prison.

Finally, former FMC Lexington correctional officer Jacob Salcido pled guilty in US District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky  a week ago to three counts of sexual abuse of a ward, admitting that over the last four months of 2020, he “knowingly engaged in sexual acts with three inmates.” He is due to be sentenced in December.

Corrections1, N.Y. facility halts intake of sentenced inmates (September 17, 2024)

Associated Press, Bureau of Prisons says it’s adding staff and making fixes at jail where Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is held (September 20, 2024)

Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Waseca women’s prison has been on lockdown for two weeks (September 18, 2024)

DOJ, Former FMC Prison Guard Pleads Guilty to Three Counts of Sexual Abuse of a Ward (September 13, 2024)

– Thomas L. Root