REPEAT COVID-19 INFECTIONS PLAGUE FED PRISONS
Risk is driving demands for compassionate release
Melson Mathis, a federal prisoner in New Jersey, was struggling in December with what he thought were lingering COVID-19 symptoms — shortness of breath and diminished lung function from a bout with the virus last summer.
Then on Dec. 10, he got tested again for the virus — and the results came back positive for a second time six months after his initial diagnosis, he wrote to a judge.
“Your Honor, it’s worse this time, I am really experiencing more severe symptoms than before, my chest hurts and my breathing is labored,” Mathis, 46, wrote.
While massive outbreaks of coronavirus in the federal prison system have been documented, Mathis is one of a handful of prisoners to have contracted the disease twice, a rare though not unheard of occurrence, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In federal jails and prisons, where positive COVID-19 rates are higher than in the general population, word of recurring infections has prompted some judges to grant requests for release due to the risk of catching coronavirus a second time.
In November, Mathis, who was convicted of playing a leading role in a New York drug trafficking organization, was among hundreds of men transferred from a federal prison in Elkton, Ohio, to Fort Dix prison in New Jersey.
The controversial move was blamed for seeding a coronavirus outbreak at the Jersey prison, which recorded 232 confirmed cases in November — the largest federal prison outbreak in the country.
In one unit, 217 out of 230 prisoners — 94% — tested positive for COVID-19, according to court filings.
“I’m like, what in the world is going on in there?” Mathis’ mother, Carol Mathis, 62, told the Daily News.
Two other men in federal prisons have tested positive a second time and survived, according to records and defense lawyers.
A Texas man, Ricky Lynn Miller, was serving a sentence for possession of child porn when he caught COVID-19 in June.
He recovered in July, then tested positive again two months later and died Sept. 17, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
At least five men died of complications from COVID-19 at federal prisons after being listed by the bureau as “recovered,” though not all those men tested positive a second time, according to a review of records by The News.
T h e bureau did not provide statistics on reinfections among the incarcerated population or respond to a request for comment.
But instances of a second infection have defense attorneys making arguments that their clients who already had COVID-19 are at risk of catching it again — and judges are citing it as a reason to release prisoners.
In Maryland, a judge released 65-year-old Kelvin Heyward, who already had the virus, because he could get it again.
“Mr. Heyward argues, and the government does not dispute, that a secondary contraction of COVID-19 is possible,” wrote the judge.
Mathis, meanwhile, waits at Fort Dix for word on whether his judge will release him now that he’s gotten COVID-19 a second time.
“I’m hoping and praying that they let him out,” his mother said.