FEDS FIBBED ABOUT ICY JAIL
Witnesses: Brass ignored the sick, misled officials
Government jail brass lied about freezing conditions and the loss of electricity in the Metropolitan Detention Center, according to witnesses who took the stand in federal court Tuesday.
Warden Herman Quay and Bureau of Prisons attorney Nicole McFarland were singled out in testimony as ignoring inmates’ urgent medical needs and misleading attorneys and officials about conditions after a Jan. 27 electrical fire knocked out lights in parts of the jail, which houses 1,600 people.
“Nicole McFarland represented that medical care continued without problem. I spoke to clients with open wounds,” Deirdre von Dornum, the attorney-in-charge of Brooklyn Federal Defenders, said during the hearing in Manhattan Federal Court.
Von Dornum described McFarland standing beside her “indifferently” as she heard the pleas of an inmate suffering from Colitis, bleeding on his bedsheets.
Quay told a senior court official the heat was working, but von Dornum said she saw frost on windows around that same time.
“I have personal knowledge that what the warden said was false,” she said.
Bureau of Prisons officials said heat and electricity were back Sunday. Von Dornum was one of 11 witnesses who testified in a four-hour hearing called by Judge Analisa Torres.
An inmate, Donnell Murray, described the anxiety of being unable to reach his lawyer because phones were disabled and visits were cut off. A correction officer took the temperature in his cell and it was around 30 to 40 degrees, he said. Miguel Cruz, who is no longer at MDC, said the hardest part was being stuck in his cell in pitch-black dark with another inmate.
“It was always dark . ... It’s horrible. I don’t like it. Nobody else would. You’re in a cell with another person. Anything could happen.”
City Councilman Jumaane Williams, who toured the jail on Saturday, described a shocking lack of urgency among administrators.
“There was no plan. There was no plan to create a plan,” he said. “People seemed to be annoyed we cared about the prisoners.”
John Ross, a Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s Office investigator, visited the jail Friday and was most concerned about lack of medical care.
“The temperature, for the most part, I would say was fine,” Ross said.
After the hearing, Torres toured the jail with Federal Defenders and BOP lawyers, joined by State Attorney Genral Letitia James. The judge was learly troubled by ccounts from inside f the jail and allegaions of efforts to minimize the crisis. Von Dornum sugested Torres conider appointing a eutral “receiver” to monitor MDC and orce it to disclose more information. he declined, but oted the Federal Deenders were seeking hat measure in a awsuit. Von Dornum accompanied the judge on her tour and confirmed after that conditions had greatly improved, though concerns remained about medical care. “To me the biggest problem is a lack of transparency,” she said. “For them to say ‘everything is fine’ made it very difficult.” While trying to get information from MDC’s legal bureau, von Dornum recalled being told, “I wouldn’t trust an inmate over a lawyer.” “That turned out not to be a reasonable assumption,” she said.