Criminal charges announced in connection with NYC federal prison – NBC New York (47)

NEW YORK – Two inmates were stabbed to death. Another was speared in the spine with a moving ice pick. A corrections officer has been accused of shooting at a car during a high-speed chase.

The criminal indictments unsealed Monday shed new light on the violence and disorder that has plagued the Brooklyn federal prison where Sean “Diddy” Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried are being held.

In all, federal prosecutors charged nine inmates in connection with a series of attacks that occurred between April and August at the Metropolitan Detention Center, the only federal prison in New York City. The charges come amid an effort by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons to fix problems in the prison and hold perpetrators accountable.

Andrew Simpson and Devone Thomas were charged with murder at a federal detention center for allegedly stabbing inmate Uriel Whyte to death on June 7. Jamaul Aziz, James Bazemore and Alberto Santiago were charged with premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit murder inside a federal detention center for the July 17 killing of inmate Edwin Cordero. An improvised weapon was used in both attacks, prosecutors said.

Messages seeking comment were left with attorneys who represented Thomas, Aziz, Bazemore and Santiago in their previous cases. Simpson’s attorney declined to comment.

Four other inmates were charged with non-lethal assaults. One was charged with assaulting a federal officer for allegedly punching a corrections officer in the face in August after the officer offered him breakfast. Two more were charged in the ice-picking attack a few days later.

“Violence is unacceptable in our federal prisons,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. He said the charges should serve as “a warning to those who engage in criminal behavior behind bars, and to anyone else who facilitates these crimes: their behavior will be exposed and they will be held accountable.” “

Also Monday, a corrections officer assigned to patrol the prison’s perimeter was charged with a civil rights violation for shooting at a BMW sedan with his weapon issued by the Bureau of Prisons in September 2023. after driving the vehicle through the streets of Brooklyn in a government-owned Dodge Caravan. The BMW had three bullet holes on the outside in the back and one person inside was injured, Peace said.

The officer, Leon Wilson, 49, drove more than twice the speed limit, ran red lights, swerved and narrowly missed other vehicles, and returned to his post without telling anyone what happened, prosecutors said. Wilson, who has been an employee of the prison since 2000, met the BMW in the employee parking lot and drove to a location near the Brooklyn Bridge, about five miles away, prosecutors said.

Wilson is at least the seventh MDC Brooklyn employee to be charged with a crime in the past five years. Others were accused of accepting bribes or giving away paraphernalia such as drugs, cigarettes and cellphones, according to an Associated Press review of gang-related arrests.

A message was left with Wilson’s attorney seeking comment.

The Bureau of Prisons says it is working to fix problems at the Brooklyn jail, where inmates, guards and judges have regularly complained about “dangerous and barbaric conditions,” giving into rampant violence. Combs’ attorneys filed a motion Monday to free him from the troubled prison while he awaits trial on sex-trafficking charges.

A group of top Bureau of Prisons officials known as the Emergency Task Force is focused on getting the Brooklyn jail back to adequate staffing levels and ensuring it is in good condition. They have visited the facilities again and meet weekly to deal with problems in the prison.

So far, the group says, it has increased staff by about 20%, bringing the total number of employees to 469 in mid-September and leaving about 157 position left vacant. The group says they have also been dealing with a large maintenance backlog. Over four weeks this spring, agency workers completed more than 800 work orders for infrastructure repairs and improvements. They included electrical and plumbing upgrades, as well as repairs to food service and heating and air conditioning systems.

“We are very involved in addressing staffing and other challenges at MDC Brooklyn,” the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement.

According to prosecutors, Simpson and Thomas attacked Whyte (arming themselves with improvised weapons and engaging in a series of two-on-one attacks on him) after Whyte and Simpson got into a verbal dispute to start Simpson and Thomas were cellmates at the time and attacked Whyte in his own cell, prosecutors said. The violence escalated over about 15 minutes, prosecutors said, culminating in a wound to Whyte’s neck that severed his carotid artery.

In the attack on Cordero, according to the prosecutors, Santiago, Aziz and Bazemore confronted him after a dispute between Cordero and Santiago, who stabbed him in the middle of the chest, piercing parts of his heart. Bazemore then stabbed him in the back and Aziz and Bazemore repeatedly stabbed, punched and kicked him, prosecutors said, even after he fell and tried to defend himself with a board .

An ongoing Associated Press investigation has uncovered deep, previously unreported failures within the Bureau of Prisons, an agency with more than 30,000 employees, 158,000 inmates, 122 facilities and an annual budget of about $8 billion.

AP reports rampant criminal activity by staff, dozens of escapes, ongoing violence, deaths and severe staffing shortages that have hampered emergency responses, including inmate attacks and suicides.

In April, the Bureau of Prisons said it was closing its women’s prison in Dublin, California, known as the “rape club”, abandoning efforts to reform the facility after an investigation AP revealed sexual abuse of the staff towards prisoners.

In July, President Joe Biden signed a law strengthening oversight of the Bureau of Prisons after an AP report shed light on the agency’s many failures.