According to federal officials, an “interagency operation” was launched Monday at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), proving there are worse things about the facility than the crimes of two current and former MDC inmates, Diddy and the late Jeffrey Epstein.
Just months before Diddy’s September arrest, nine Metropolitan inmates were charged in connection with attacks at the center, involving the deaths of two inmates, and charges were filed against a security officer who fired a gun in an unauthorized high-speed chase, according to the Associated Press. After Diddy’s arrest, a detention center inmate was charged in connection with a murder-for-hire plot he planned using a contraband cell phone while in custody.
The Metropolitan Detention Center, New York’s only federal jail, currently houses 1,200 inmates. The operation on Monday involved the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office, and other law enforcement agencies, and it was “designed to achieve our shared goal of maintaining a safe environment for both our employees and the incarcerated individuals housed at MDC Brooklyn,” a Bureau of Prisons Statement said.
An “ongoing tragedy”
Health and safety issues at the MDC are nothing new. The MDC opened in the 1990s and is often used to detain suspects awaiting trial. Violence, sanitation, and issues with drugs and other contraband have long plagued the chronically understaffed facility, and the Bureau of Prisons has “temporarily paused” sending convicted criminals there to serve their sentences. Things are so bad at the MDC judges have also refused to send inmates there, with conditions described as “hell on earth” and an “ongoing tragedy.”
In addition to the notorious alleged and convicted criminals mentioned, the MDC has also housed R. Kelly, Martin Shkreli, Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, and convicted crypto-fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, to name a few. Inmates complain of frequent lockdowns, blocking visits, showers, exercise, and other activities. Since about 2019, six MDC staffers have faced bribery and contraband charges, and three MDC inmates have died by suicide in recent years.
Maxwell, now serving her sentence in Florida on a sex trafficking conviction stemming from the Epstein sexual exploitation and trafficking case(s), spent two years at the MDC awaiting trial, and in that time, she complained of rats in the center, rotten food, and other problems. Epstein died from suicide at the MDC in 2019, awaiting trial.
Staffing issues and a maintenance backlog
About a month before the “interagency operation” at the MDC, the Bureau of Prisons said it would add staff and take steps to address an onerous backlog of issues at the facility, but problems remain. In September, Diddy’s lawyer asked a judge to let his client await trial under house arrest in Florida rather than the MDC, but the attorney’s request was denied. Diddy lawyers now seek to transfer Diddy to a New Jersey prison.
When the operation happened, Diddy, facing a litany of charges, was housed at the MDC special housing unit with added security. Details were otherwise scarce about the Monday operation’s outcome, what the agencies did, or what they hoped to achieve. The Bureau of Prisons said the operation was preplanned, and there was no active threat.
Published: Oct 29, 2024 01:44 pm