Inside the Brooklyn federal jail where Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is locked up, described as ‘hell on earth’

NEW YORK (AP) — As they unsuccessfully fought to maintain Sean “Diddy” Combs out of jail after his intercourse trafficking arrest, the music mogul’s attorneys highlighted a litany of horrors on the Brooklyn federal lockup the place he was headed: horrific circumstances, rampant violence and a number of deaths.

Combs, 54, was despatched to the Metropolitan Detention Middle in Brooklyn on Tuesday — a spot that’s been described as “hell on earth” and an “ongoing tragedy” — after pleading not responsible in a case that accuses him of bodily and sexually abusing ladies for greater than a decade.

WATCH: Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs held with out bail after arrest on intercourse trafficking indictment

The power, the one federal jail in New York Metropolis, has been stricken by issues because it opened within the Nineties. In recent times, its circumstances have been so stark that some judges have refused to ship folks there. It has additionally been dwelling to quite a few high-profile inmates, together with R. Kelly, Ghislaine Maxwell and cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.

In an announcement, the federal Bureau of Prisons stated: “We additionally take severely addressing the staffing and different challenges at MDC Brooklyn.” An company group is working to repair issues, together with by including everlasting correctional and medical employees, remedying greater than 700 backlogged upkeep requests and answering judges’ issues.

A choose on Wednesday denied a request by Combs’ attorneys to let him await trial below home arrest at his $48 million mansion on an island in Miami Seashore, Florida.

Listed below are some necessary issues to know concerning the jail:

What’s the Metropolitan Detention Middle?

The Bureau of Prisons opened the ability, referred to as MDC Brooklyn, as a jail within the early Nineties.

It’s used primarily for post-arrest detention for folks awaiting trial in federal courts in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Different inmates are there to serve brief sentences following convictions.

The power, in an industrial space on the Brooklyn waterfront, has about 1,200 detainees, down from greater than 1,600 in January. It has out of doors recreation services, a medical unit with examination rooms and a dental suite. It has a separate wing for academic applications and the jail’s library.

The Bureau of Prisons closed its crumbling Metropolitan Correctional Middle in Manhattan in 2021, leaving MDC Brooklyn as its solely facility within the nation’s largest metropolis.

READ MORE: U.S. closing troubled NYC jail the place Epstein died by suicide

What are some issues with MDC Brooklyn?

Detainees have lengthy complained about rampant violence, dreadful circumstances, extreme staffing shortages and the widespread smuggling of medicine and different contraband, a few of it facilitated by workers. On the identical time, they are saying they’ve been topic to frequent lockdowns and have been barred from leaving their cells for visits, calls, showers or train.

In June, Uriel Whyte, 37, was stabbed to dying on the jail. A month later, Edwin Cordero, 36, died after he was harm in a brawl. At the least 4 folks detained on the jail have died by suicide within the final three years.

Cordero’s lawyer, Andrew Dalack, instructed The New York Occasions his consumer was simply the sufferer of “an overcrowded, understaffed and uncared for federal jail that’s hell on earth.”

At the least six MDC Brooklyn employees members have been charged with crimes within the final 5 years. Some have been accused of accepting bribes or offering contraband similar to medication, cigarettes, and cellphones, in line with an Related Press evaluation of agency-related arrests.

MDC Brooklyn has additionally come below fireplace for its response to debilitating infrastructure breakdowns and the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, a week-long energy failure sparked unrest amongst shivering inmates and drew issues from federal watchdogs. In March 2020, the jail had the primary federal inmate to check constructive for COVID-19.

As of final November, in line with courtroom filings, MDC Brooklyn was working at about 55 % of full staffing, which was taxing to workers and added to its safety woes.

What’s being executed about these issues?

Judges and advocates have taken discover, excoriating the Bureau of Prisons for “harmful, barbaric circumstances” and urgent the company to make enhancements. Some judges have moved away from sending defendants to MDC Brooklyn or have given diminished sentences due to the circumstances there.

In January, U.S. District Choose Furman took the uncommon step of permitting Gustavo Chavez, 70, to stay free on bail after his conviction for drug crimes fairly than locking him up on the Brooklyn jail to await sentencing.

“Prosecutors not even put up a battle, not to mention dispute that the state of affairs is unacceptable,” Furman wrote.

In August, U.S. District Choose Gary Brown stated he would vacate a 75-year-old defendant’s nine-month sentence for tax fraud and place him on dwelling confinement if the Bureau of Prisons despatched him to MDC Brooklyn.

In response, the Bureau of Prisons stated it had “quickly paused” sending any defendants convicted of crimes to the jail to serve their sentences. In an announcement Tuesday, the company stated 43 folks have been presently serving sentences in a minimum-security unit on the jail.

What different notable folks have been detained at MDC Brooklyn?

Combs is simply the most recent celeb inmate to be locked up at MDC Brooklyn, becoming a member of an inventory that features Maxwell, Kelly, Bankman-Fried and the rapper Fetty Wap.

Different high-profile detainees have included Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli, NXIVM intercourse cult founder Keith Raniere, former Mexican authorities official Genaro Garcia Luna and ex-Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez Alvarado.

What occurred to New York Metropolis’s different federal jail?

The Metropolitan Correctional Middle in Manhattan closed in 2021 after a slew of issues that got here to gentle after Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide there two years earlier.

The jail — subsequent to the courthouse the place Combs was arraigned — was stricken by lax safety, extreme staffing shortages and squalid, unsafe circumstances together with falling concrete, freezing temperatures and busted cells.

Folks detained on the facility have been relocated to MDC Brooklyn or a medium-security jail in Otisville, New York.

What have Combs’ attorneys and prosecutors stated?

Combs’ attorneys argued in paperwork searching for his launch that the Metropolitan Detention Middle isn’t match for pretrial detention. They cited current detainee deaths, and the issues shared by judges that the jail isn’t any place for anybody to be held.

Requested about holding a high-profile inmate like Combs locked up, notably in gentle of Epstein’s 2019 dying, Manhattan-based U.S. Lawyer Damian Williams stated: “We’re involved with anybody’s security each time they’re detained previous to trial.”

“I don’t draw any kind of connection between Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide and what might or might not occur to every other defendant whereas they’re detained pretrial,” he added.

Combs’ lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, stated Wednesday that the rapper is being held in MDC Brooklyn’s particular housing unit, which gives an additional layer of safety however could make trial preparation extra onerous. He requested that Combs be moved to a New Jersey jail, however a choose stated it’s as much as the Bureau of Prisons to resolve.

Is it simply MDC Brooklyn, or do all federal prisons have points?

An ongoing Related Press investigation has uncovered deep, beforehand unreported flaws throughout the Bureau of Prisons, an company with greater than 30,000 workers, 158,000 inmates, 122 services and an annual price range of about $8 billion.

AP reporting has revealed dozens of escapes, persistent violence, deaths and extreme staffing shortages which have hampered responses to emergencies, together with inmate assaults and suicides.

In April, the Bureau of Prisons stated it was closing its ladies’s jail in Dublin, California, referred to as the “rape membership,” giving up on makes an attempt to reform the ability after an AP investigation uncovered staff-on-inmate sexual abuse.

In July, President Joe Biden signed a legislation strengthening oversight of the Bureau of Prisons after the AP’s reporting shined a highlight on the company’s many flaws.