ROTTING IN RIKERS
7- year wait for a trial
A Manhattan man has spent nearly all of the past seven years locked up on Rikers Island awaiting trial — a dubious record for pretrial incarceration that is not likely to end any time soon, experts told The Post.
Carlos Montero, now 24, was with two pals when one fatally stabbed a man and the other slashed another during a robbery in Washington Heights on Oct. 23, 2008, authorities have charged.
Montero, who has spent six years and eight months in Rikers, attempted to get his case tried separately — while one of his alleged cohorts fights the DNA evidence— but the judge balked.
“I’m depressed in here. I just want to go home,’’ said Montero, who entered the jail at age 17.
The state statute that is supposed to guarantee a prisoner’s right to a speedy trial — within 180 days — doesn’t apply to murder cases.
There also is a right to a reasonably rapid proceeding under the Sixth Amendment, but the US Constitution doesn’t give a timeline.
So Montero is still waiting for his trial, even after 77 appearances in Manhattan Supreme Court before Justice Ronald Zweibel— and 2,423 days behind bars.
Montero said he was aware of the recent suicide of Kalief Browder, a Bronx man who was locked up on Rikers for three years starting at age 16 while he awaited trial. Browder was eventually cleared, but his lawyer said the abuse that the teen suffered at Rikers led to his June 6 suicide.
Montero said that while his situation has left him despondent, too, “I don’t think about killing myself because I love myself.
“I still think I can get justice,” he said.
Montero’s situation seems tailormade to challenge the law, said civilrights lawyer Ron Kuby, who is not connected to the case.
“This case is goldmedal winning when it comes to delay,” Kuby said. “The longest period of time I’ve heard of is about five years in New York state.”
According to the city’s Independent Budget Office, the cost of housing one inmate in 2012 was $ 167,731. That means Montero has already cost the city more than $ 1 million.
Montero was allegedly with buddies Jairo Peralta and Diangelo Enriquez when they demanded that victim Brian Maldonado hand over his jacket near 187th Street and Audubon Avenue, cops said.
Peralta fatally stabbed Maldonado as he took off his coat, while Enriquez slashed another man who tried to flee, according to court papers.
Montero insists that he wasn’t even there that day, despite witnesses who placed him at the scene of the crime.
The city Department of Correction doesn’t keep records on pretrial incarceration time, but Kuby and other lawyers said Montero’s time could be a state record.
Kuby said Montero’s lawyer can try to fight for his freedom while his case comes to trial. But Montero’s lawyer, Robert Jaffe, said he has moved to separate his client’s case from the other two suspects’— and was denied.
“The massive delay should not have happened,” Jaffe said.