Brooklyn Jail Is Too ‘Inhumane’ for 75-Year-Old Tax Scammer, Judge Says
The New York Times
A federal judge said he would sentence a man to house arrest instead of jail time if the Federal Bureau of Prisons sent him to the long-troubled Metropolitan Detention Center.
A federal judge on Long Island said he would vacate the sentence of a 75-year-old man convicted on tax fraud charges and instead place him on house arrest if he were sent to serve time at a troubled jail in Brooklyn, citing “inhumane treatment” at the facility.
The 17-page decision by the judge, Gary Brown, described in extensive detail the inhumane conditions at the jail, the Metropolitan Detention Center, including lengthy lockdowns, vicious assaults and significant delays in providing medical care.
The decision by Judge Brown, who sentenced the man, Daniel Colucci, to nine months in prison on Monday, came weeks after an inmate at the Brooklyn facility was killed when a fight broke out there.
The ongoing problems at the jail, known as the M.D.C. and run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, have affected judicial rulings in the past. Earlier this year, Judge Jesse M. Furman of Federal District Court in Manhattan refused to send a man convicted in a drug case to the facility, citing complaints of heinous conditions driven by severe understaffing. Judge Brown cited Judge Furman’s decision in his opinion this week.
Judge Brown described two apparent homicides at the facility, two stabbings and an assault that fractured the victim’s eye socket. He also noted several examples of corruption, including gang members’ use of prohibited cellphones and a former corrections officer at the jail who was sentenced for accepting thousands of dollars to smuggle in contraband.
The U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York, which prosecuted the case against Mr. Colucci, declined to comment on Judge Brown’s decision.
