A federal judge on Long Island said he would vacate the sentence of a 75-year-old man convicted on tax fraud charges and instead place him on house arrest if he were sent to serve time at a troubled jail in Brooklyn, citing “inhumane treatment” at the facility.
The 17-page decision by the judge, Gary Brown, described in extensive detail the inhumane conditions at the jail, the Metropolitan Detention Center, including lengthy lockdowns, vicious assaults and significant delays in providing medical care.
Judge Brown’s decision, which sentenced the man, Daniel Colucci, to nine months in prison on Monday, came weeks after an inmate at the Brooklyn facility was killed when a fight broke out there.
The ongoing problems at the jail, known as the M.D.C. and run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, have affected judicial rulings in the past. Earlier this year, Judge Jesse M. Furman of Federal District Court in Manhattan refused to send a man convicted in a drug case to the facility, citing complaints of heinous conditions driven by severe understaffing. Judge Brown cited Judge Furman’s decision in his opinion this week.
Judge Brown described two apparent homicides at the facility, two stabbings and an assault that fractured the victim’s eye. He also noted several examples of corruption, including gang members’ use of prohibited cellphones and a former corrections officer at the jail who was sentenced for accepting thousands of dollars to smuggle in contraband.
The U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York, which prosecuted the case against Mr. Colucci, declined to comment on Judge Brown’s decision.
“We make every effort to ensure the physical safety and health of the individuals confined to our facilities through a controlled environment that is secure and humane,” Scott Taylor, a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons, said, echoing a statement it provided to The New York Times in January after Judge Furman refused to send a defendant to the jail.
The M.D.C. has housed several high-profile figures in recent years, including Sam Bankman-Fried and Ghislaine Maxwell, and has long been plagued by understaffing. As of early this month, it housed nearly 1,300 people, according to its website.
Tamara Giwa, executive director of the Federal Defenders of New York, a nonprofit organization of lawyers that has long expressed concerns about the M.D.C., said that Judge Brown’s decision further highlighted the facility’s problems.
“The conditions at the jail are deplorable and inhumane, marked by persistent lockdowns, inadequate medical care and rampant violence,” she said.
Mr. Colucci was indicted on a dozen felony counts of willfully failing to collect and pay taxes worth nearly $1 million. He pleaded guilty to all the charges he faced.
Judge Brown said Mr. Colucci, who owned a company that collected debts on behalf of medical facilities, had misappropriated tax withholdings from his employees’ paychecks, neglected to make matching contributions to government programs and lied to his workers about it, leaving them to deal with a host of serious tax issues. Mr. Colucci further delayed making restitution payments despite possessing substantial assets, the judge said.
In deciding the length of Mr. Colucci’s sentence, Judge Brown said he had considered several factors beyond the crimes Mr. Colucci was convicted of committing, including his advanced age and a recent cancer diagnosis. The judge ultimately landed on a sentence of nine months, pending the Bureau of Prisons’ designation of a facility where it would be carried out.
On Thursday afternoon, Judge Brown updated his recommendation to the bureau, suggesting it send Mr. Colucci to a medical facility in Massachusetts.
Richard Kestenbaum, Mr. Colucci’s lawyer, said he was not sure what would happen to his client, and that it was not the first time he had seen concerns about the M.D.C. being raised during a sentencing.
“Judge Brown was right in raising it, it is a problem,” Mr. Kestenbaum said. “I admire him for having the guts or the brains to do that.”
David E. Patton, the former chief federal defender for New York City and Ms. Giwa’s predecessor, is a longtime critic of the M.D.C., which he says has not faced accountability. Wardens come and go there every few months and the jail’s leadership is wholly ineffective, he said.
“People are dying because of their inaction,” he said. “I know it’s not easy to take on your colleagues in the Bureau of Prisons. I know it’s not easy to reform a broken culture. But it’s time for some fortitude from our leaders.”
The post Brooklyn Jail Is Too ‘Inhumane’ for 75-Year-Old Tax Scammer, Judge Says appeared first on New York Times.
