‘Cell’ phone suer
Blas’ Rikers caller rips jails chief
A recently released Rikers Island inmate who twice used a jailhouse phone to chat with Mayor de Blasio about prison conditions has filed suit against Department of Correction Commissioner Cynthia Brann.
Winston Nguyen showed up to a DOC board meeting Tuesday in lower Manhattan to attempt to serve the suit, which alleges that Brann failed in her duties as commissioner by not giving socks to inmates and censoring newspapers at the jail.
“The commissioner is acting beyond her legal authority,” Nguyen told the board, as a woman attempted to serve Brann with the papers Nguyen filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“I was going to serve the papers . . . but I realized I couldn’t do it personally, so I brought a friend,” Nguyen said.
The friend’s attempt was quickly thwarted by city lawyer Heidi Grossman, who told Nguyen he wasn’t following the proper protocol.
Nguyen, a home health aide and former “Jeopardy!” contestant, made the calls to Hizzoner during the mayor’s weekly appearances on WNYC radio.
He was behind bars from Jan. 10 to May 8 for stealing more than $300,000 from an elderly couple and using it to buy ballet tickets and trips to Florida. He had pleaded guilty in December in exchange for only six months in jail and five years probation, and was released after four months for good behavior.
He alleges that the DOC “does not provide undergarments or socks to all prisoners.”
He also says that “many” new jailbirds “are not given a blanket upon admission.” He further alleges a lack of clean bedding and of word processors, and of the “failure to deliver mail within an acceptable window of time.”
Nguyen also claims the DOC censors newspapers by clipping articles about changes to cash-bail laws.
“I’m asking the board to . . . find out why the staff at Rikers is censoring newspapers, especially [since] they have reporting that could directly affect people that are currently in jail,” he said during a public comment period.
A spokesman for the city Law Department said it will review the suit.