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There’s more trouble brewing for an embattled Queens public defender office, as a lawyer there was busted for passing drugs to an incarcerated client just days after group’s founder was charged with fraud. One of the staff lawyers at Queens Defenders was arrested for allegedly attempting to sneak more than 130 pages of paper laced with THC to an inmate during a scheduled attorney visit at Rikers Island. Bernardo Caceres was charged with promoting prison contraband, a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison in New York. During a visit to inmate Luis DeJesus Wednesday afternoon – who’s...

(The Center Square) — Federal immigration officials will have a permanent office on New York City's notorious Rikers Island prison under a directive from the Adams administration, which says the move will help with investigations of transnational gangs and terrorist groups. An executive order, signed Tuesday by New York City's First Deputy Mayor Randy Maestro, permits the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration to set up office space on the island, which houses city jails. They will work with the city's Correction Intelligence Bureau to investigate alleged "violent criminals and gangs, crimes committed at...

New York City's Democratic Mayor Eric Adams announced on Thursday he will issue an executive order that will allow federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into Rikers Island to assist in criminal investigations of illegal migrants. The mayor's announcement comes after he met with President Donald Trump's border czar Tom Homan, where the pair also reportedly discussed ways to embed local New York police detectives into federal task forces investigating gangs and criminal activities, according to the New York Times. Homan confirmed that the mayor committed to helping restore a federal presence in Rikers Island prison. But based on...

Harvey Weinstein was hospitalized Monday following an “alarming blood test,” his attorney said, less than a week after the disgraced movie mogul filed a legal claim alleging substandard medical care at New York City’s notorious jail complex. Weinstein, 72, was sent to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan for an “emergent treatment due to an alarming blood test result that requires immediate medical attention,” his attorney, Imran Ansari, said in a statement. “It is expected that he will remain there until his condition stabilizes,” the statement continues. “His deprivation of care is not only medical malpractice, but a violation of his constitutional...

A federal judge has ordered New York City to draft plans to hand over management of its Rikers Island jail complex to a third-party receiver after holding the city's Department of Corrections (DOC) in civil contempt for failing to meet more than a dozen requirements to improve conditions in its violence-wracked jails. In an opinion and order issued Tuesday, Chief U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York Laura Taylor Swain wrote that she was "inclined to impose a receivership" after finding that violence and death inside Rikers has not improved since New York City agreed to a...

The third victim of the knife-wielding maniac who left a bloody trail across Manhattan in a broad-daylight stabbing spree Monday has died of her injuries as the brute confessed to the random killings, sources said. The 36-year-old woman — the alleged third and final victim of 51-year-old Ramon Rivera — succumbed to her injuries in the hospital Monday evening, police said. Rivera, a homeless man with an extensive criminal record and reported mental health ailments, allegedly confessed to the unprovoked stabbings that began in the morning and crossed the width of the borough from Chelsea to the East River, sources...

Biggest 2nd Amendment Case of our time.

New York City's Rikers Island is prepared if former President Donald Trump is ordered to serve time in jail amid his unprecedented trial in Manhattan, Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday. "Our amazing commissioner … is prepared for whatever comes on Rikers Island," Adams told the media Tuesday when asked if Rikers, New York City's largest prison, is prepared if Trump is ordered to jail for violating a gag order imposed during the trial. "I'm pretty sure [the Department of Corrections commissioner] would be prepared to manage and deal with the situation. As you see what's happening with Harvey Weinstein, we...

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) announced that the city’s Department of Corrections was prepared to imprison former President Donald Trump at Rikers Island. Adams’ comments came a day after New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over Trump’s business records trial, threatened to jail the former president after finding him in contempt for violating a gag order for the tenth time.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams was baptized at notorious Rikers Island jail on Good Friday. Adams was baptized by civil rights campaigner Rev. Al Sharpton, alongside a group of male prisoners. The ceremony came as part of a visit to the jail, which has seen reports of violent crime and inmate deaths, where Adams met with detainees over Easter weekend. Adams was seen joining Sharpton in prayer, being baptized and having his feet washed by the reverend. 'Having been arrested and then elected mayor, I reminded these young men that where you are is not who you are,' Adams...

A former Rikers guard who was sexually assaulted by an inmate claims a nurse at the notorious jail could have been spared an attempted rape if supervisors had taken her attack more seriously... Yessica Delacruz was working an overnight shift at one of the jail’s clinics and was transferring incoming inmates from an intake cell to the medical unit when she first encountered Michael Cleaver just after 2 a.m. ... Cleaver, 55, had just been arrested on Nov. 9 on charges of burglary, harassment and menacing... ... “He came to the door and started pushing the door, like a football...

A female inmate at a women’s correctional facility in New York filed a lawsuit alleging that a male inmate who claimed to be “transgender” raped her. The lawsuit was filed by “Rose Doe,” who was housed in the Rose M. Singer women’s jail on Rikers Island. Doe is suing a total of 20 defendants, including the city of New York, alleging that the staff at the jail ignored her warnings about the “transgender women” who was living with the female inmates (via NBC New York):"His introduction was, 'I’m not transgender. I’m straight. I like women,’" said the plaintiff, who is...

A Rikers Island corrections officer who once claimed he was working more than 100 hours a week was hit with federal charges Wednesday for allegedly cheating the city out of more than $170,000 in bogus overtime. James Internicola, a 26-year veteran of the city Department of Corrections, was allegedly on vacation soaking up the sun in Aruba or on the Jersey Shore while claiming he was actually on duty at Rikers, according to a 13-page complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court. Between July 2021 and January 2023, the 56-year-old Rikers guard pocketed more than $390,000 in pay and overtime —...

Inmates on notorious Rikers Island could soon be scoring “Get out of Jail Free” cards courtesy of the New York City Council. Progressive Democratic Council members approved a controversial bill aimed at slashing the lock-up’s population by creating new borough-based, taxpayer-funded “jail population review” teams to decide who among the complex’s roughly 6,000 prisoners meet yet-to-be-determined criteria “for early case resolution or pretrial release.” Democratic Councilman Robert Holden called it among the most “dangerous” pieces of legislation he’s ever seen. The goal of the bill, sponsored by left-wing Councilwoman Carlina Rivera (D-Manhattan), is lowering the jail population to meet a...

Family and advocates are outside NY Gov. Kathy Hochul's New York City office calling for jail reform after two more deaths at Rikers Island.

Mayor Bill de Blasio rebuffed demands by Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for an instant release of all Rikers Island detainees due to increasingly dangerous conditions at the jail, refusing to “just open up the gates.” “That’s not going to happen,” de Blasio said Wednesday during his daily press briefing, held remotely from Queens Borough Hall. “I respect the Congress member and her colleagues who signed that letter, [but] couldn’t disagree with them more,” he added. “It’s not going to happen, it’s not the right way to handle things.” On Tuesday, AOC along with Reps. Jamaal Bowman, Nydia Velazquez...

Scores of inmates serving time on Rikers Island are set to be sprung prematurely as part of a desperate bid by Mayor Bill de Blasio to deal with the shortage of correction officers willing to work there, The Post has learned. The horde of ex-cons would comprise the second wave of convicted criminals granted early release since last year, when officials used the COVID-19 pandemic to justify putting around 180 jailbirds back on the streets. Those inmates were among more than 1,500 who were freed last year due to the coronavirus crisis, reducing the city’s jail population to 4,363 —...

Hundreds of inmates were released from Riker's Island in New York City to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in the prison. Officials knew the risks. And those fears have been realized, hundreds of times. New reporting from Melissa Russo reveals that at least 250 prisoners out of the 2,500 who were released early have gone on to commit at least 450 more crimes. **SNIP** Melissa Russo ✔ @MelissaRusso4NY 250 prisoners released early from Rikers bc of COVID-19 concerns have been arrested 450 times since. We take a look at one who has been rearrested 4X already. The NYPD is...

Some inmates released from Rikers Island amid the coronavirus outbreak are being given free cellphones, cab fare and even hotel rooms as they head out the door, according to sources and a City Hall rep. “This is a disgrace to all correction officers — insane and dishonorable,’’ a city Department of Corrections source raged to The Post on Friday.

Weinstein is said to be under the watchful eye of medics and is being regularly checked on by guards amid concerns he could harm himself. He said to enjoy regular inmate privileges including one hour of recreation, library access and three meals a day. . . . He is set to be sentenced on Wednesday. New York prosecutors said in a court filing on Friday he should get a sentence that reflects not only his conviction for sexually assaulting two women, but a 'lifetime of abuse towards others'.