The Epstein Scandal Was Just the Tip of the Iceberg

How can a prison be so bad it breaks the legal system? A place where judges shorten prisoners' sentences due to the conditions they face. This isn’t some ‘off the grid’ black site - it’s in the heart of Manhattan: New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center. I’m Josh, and today on The Infographics Show, we’re taking you inside the corrupt prison where Jeffrey Epstein died. When the Metropolitan Correctional Center, or MCC, opened in 1975 it was the darling of the architectural world. A departure from the usual prison facilities. Comfortable chairs. Wood furniture. No bars on the windows. They called it a "leap of two hundred years". They didn’t say in which direction. Over time, the wood became concrete. Sunlight vanished behind frosted glass. The ‘humane’ design became a weapon. The metallic walls didn't insulate, they conducted. In the winter, the cells became iceboxes where food froze on the floor. In the summer, they became ovens. Prisoners even reported having trouble thinking or having to wear layers of clothes just to get to sleep. The temperature was the least of their problems. The MCC was chronically overcrowded, a problem widely acknowledged as early as 2002. By 2017, it held 796 inmates - nearly double its design capacity of 449. Even in 2019, over 600 people were crammed in a building built for 449 Besides Epstein, notorious figures like Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzma, John Gotti and Bernie Madoff spent time at MCC. All of them experienced horrific conditions. British civil-rights lawyer Gareth Peirce described the conditions there as “diabolical. ” Even international courts noticed. From 2007 to 2012, the European Court of Human Rights stayed the extradition of 6 UK subjects over concerns about inhumane conditions at U. S. federal facilities, including MCC. They eventually capitulated to U. S. pressure in 2012. But the condemnation of the facility didn’t stop there. In 2014, Amnesty International decried the conditions at MCC, as did a report by Human Rights Watch and Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute in the same year. Former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Méndez also decried the conditions there. But even those complaints seemed to only be the tip of the iceberg. There were other more frightening horrors even further inside. While the entire facility had become something of a hellhole, conditions were especially brutal in the 9th floor Special Housing Unit - the SHU -and the infamous 10 South wing. This is where Epstein is believed to have been housed when he died. It was reserved for inmates deemed unsafe for general population - or accused of breaking jail rules - and imposed far more restrictive conditions, including solitary confinement. The conditions in Epstein’s wing were anything but satisfactory. The majority of the inmates held in 10 South since 2000 were Muslims facing terrorism charges. Inmates there lived with filth, vermin, and poor ventilation. Outdoor recreation was banned. Frosted glass was installed so inmates were deprived of natural air and light. Prisoners spent up to 23 hours per day in their cells, and had to shower there as well. Their sole form of recreation was 1 hour each day - sometimes none at all. Cells were also electronically surveilled. Every action - including using the toilet, showering, and talking - was monitored. Every move was watched, every word monitored. Privacy didn’t exist; speaking or even praying could bring punishment. Even for ordinary inmates, conditions at the MCC were terrible. MCC inmates typically faced filthy cells, vermin infestations, poor medical care, neglect of mental health, and violence or abuse from guards. In 2021, the Associated Press, or AP, was allowed access to the prison. It was the first time since Epstein’s death that a reporter was able to tour the facility. What they saw they described as “a blighted wreck, so deteriorated it’s impossible to safely house inmates. ” Within 2 years of its opening, the MCC that had promised so much was already showing signs of failure. Its population had already ballooned to 539 inmates – 90 more than it had been designed for – prompting a judge to declare the jail “unacceptably cramped and oppressive for most healthy inmates. ” In the following 4 decades, things had gone from bad to catastrophic. AP found a section of the kitchen ceiling so damaged that it was unsafe to wash dishes, forcing inmates to eat off paper plates. The pipes were old, rusted and constantly breaking. Some were located in spaces too narrow for repair. Overcrowding worsened as some housing units were closed because the cell door slits wouldn’t longer close, creating a serious security risk. Inmates could reach through the broken food slots and assault officers Then there were the rats. An inmate named Melvin Rodriguez told the Gothamist in 2019 that “at nighttime you hear the mouses [sic], see waterbugs in the shower. ” Another inmate, Ricardo Stewart, said. “We saw rats so big it seemed like they could only be in the sewer. But they… were more like roommates,” he said. Sometimes, these unwelcome roommates did more than just share the space. In 2015, Levit Fernandini sued the

Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), stating that he had “found rats in his bed and seen rats crawling on inmates while they slept. ” When he was bitten by a rodent in January 2014, “the counselor for the unit was far from surprised… the only surprise [was] that not every inmate is bitten. ” Fernandini also claimed that when the toilets broke down, inmates were given bags to defecate in, which remained on the unit. Some men even used the shower as a toilet. The prison had deteriorated to the point where judges counted time endured there as extra credit toward sentences. In April 2021, Southern District of New York Judge Paul Oetken gave Daniel Gonzalez a reduced sentence on drug charges after the inmate described a “chaotic” stay at the jail. He said it included being locked in a cell for 23 hours a day, not showering for days, and a persistent foot infection. Despite all the deterioration, the MCC still somehow managed to be a hard place to escape. So hard that it earned itself the nickname of the “Guantanamo of New York. ” Maybe that’s an unfair comparison. But according to New York attorney Joshua Dratel, who has defended several high-profile terrorism suspects at the MCC, “It is worse than Guantanamo. It is about as soul-negating existence as there is in this country in the federal system. ” No one has ever successfully escaped from MCC New York. But that hasn't stopped inmates from trying. In a daring but unsuccessful attempt 3 years later, a couple hijacked a sightseeing helicopter and tried to pluck an inmate from the rooftop recreation area. But no one else has managed to leave before finishing their sentence or being transferred to another detention facility – at least, alive. If you found this trip behind bars shocking, make sure to like, share, and subscribe for more in-depth stories like this. MCC’s problems were only about decay and poor maintenance, a renovation would have fixed them. But Epstein’s death showed there was a far more sinister problem lurking behind the crumbling walls The staff. Calling them incompetent doesn’t scratch the surface. Abuse, sexual misconduct, neglect, and corruption ran rampant. One major problem was staffing. MCC was chronically short-handed, and many guards were undertrained. The consequences were dangerous: in 2000, an Al Qaeda prisoner even stabbed a guard in the eye, leaving him partially blinded. Given the size of the U. S. prison system, shortages of trained staff are probably expected. It’s an issue that’s rampant across the U. S. prison system – not just at the MCC. The U. S. has by far the largest prison population on the planet, estimated at around 1. 9 million inmates across the various categories. They are housed in more than 6,300 facilities. In 2021, 1 in 3 guard positions was unfilled, forcing untrained staff - cooks, teachers, nurses - to watch prisoners, a process known as augmentation. An officer would have to deal with 125 inmates, working 16-hour shifts, day after day At the MCC, when already chronic staff shortages worsened due to a partial government shutdown in January 2019, prisoners staged a hunger strike after being denied family and lawyer visits. When Epstein arrived at the prison a half-year later, it was still so short-staffed that the BOP was offering correctional officers a $10,000 bonus to transfer there from other federal lockups. That’s on top of a so-called “recruitment incentive” that amounted to 10% of new guards’ first-year salaries. But despite these incentives, guards were forced to work 16-hour shifts, sometimes for several days in a row. So, did this understaffing debacle contribute to Epstein’s death? Epstein was alone when he was found unresponsive in his cell, even though he had only recently returned to the SHU from specialized observation. The jail had placed him on 24-hour monitoring with daily psychiatric evaluations, after he had been found injured on the floor of his cell two weeks earlier with neck bruises. But the guards responsible for keeping an eye on him were MIA at the time of his death. One of the two officers assigned to guard Epstein the night he died was augmented, and both were working overtime - one on his fifth straight day. They logged the required 30-minute checks, but surveillance cameras showed they were sleeping, shopping online, and neglecting their duties The two, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, were charged with conspiracy and falsifying records. In May 2021, they entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, admitting that they had “willfully and knowingly completed materially false” records. As part of the deal, they completed 100 hours of community service, cooperated with investigators, and avoided jail time. And charges were officially dropped in January 2022 after the fulfillment of the agreement. Overworked guards contributed heavily to Epstein’s death, but staffing problems alone can’t account for the MCC’s rampant abuse, corruption, and neglect. Like medical care… or the lack of it. Levit Fernandini maintains that medical staff ignored his requests for treatment for his rat bite for several days, even after the bite became infected. Another prisoner, Marlon Roberts, told the Gothamist that “Unless it’s life or death

there’s no immediate medical care. It can take two months to answer your sick call request. ” Civil rights attorney Andrew Laufer sued the BOP on behalf of an MCC prisoner who had his fingertip chopped off by a cell door. Rather than being placed in an ambulance, Laufer alleged that the man was chained at his ankles and wrists and brought to the hospital by correctional officers. All while bleeding profusely. “I think it’s an Eighth Amendment violation - deliberate indifference,” he said of the medical care at the MCC. Mental health is also a huge issue at the MCC. In February 2018, a British appeals court blocked the extradition of alleged hacker Lauri Love to the U. S., where he would likely have been held at either MCC or Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC). Love had been diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome and depression. The court determined that he would be at high risk of suicide if he were extradited, in part because of the poor mental health care available at the facilities. The MCC and MDC already hosted around 500 inmates with significant psychiatric illnesses. They only shared a single psychiatrist and employed only a handful of psychologists between them. To make matters worse, MCC could drive even a completely sane person to insanity… or self-harm. El Chapo had masterminded his escape from two of Mexico’s highest-security prisons - the second one occurring in 2015. He was then rearrested and extradited to the U. S. to face drug-smuggling charges After a few months in MCC’s 10 South, his defense lawyers were informing federal judge Brian Cogan that “something is not right with Mr. Guzman. ” Auditory hallucinations, depression, paranoia, the inability to remember people, places and events, “repeating himself often and sometimes forgetting what the discussion is about,” were the symptoms they described. Maybe his lawyers were angling for easier conditions. Still, what he went through speaks for itself. Jeanne Theoharis, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College, sums it up best: “... filthy, freezing, no natural light, isolation so extreme that you’re punished for speaking through the walls… not getting to see the newspapers unless they’re 30 days old, secrecy so deep that people are force-fed and lawyers can be punished for describing the conditions their clients are experiencing—you’d be forgiven for thinking that this was Iran or Russia. But in fact this gulag exists right here in Lower Manhattan. ” Besides Epstein, there have been surprisingly few reports of successful prisoners taking their own lives at the MCC over the years. In the aftermath of Epstein’s death, defense attorney Ron Kuby told AP that while attempts among inmates are commonplace, “it’s been a long time since they lost somebody. ” Much more common were reports of injury and death following extreme brutality from prison employees towards inmates. In 2005, Lieutenant Edward A. Mulroney, 53, was convicted of a felony civil rights violation in the beating of an inmate 2 years earlier. He admitted to beating the prisoner, who was awaiting trial, while the prisoner was handcuffed and held face down by two other correction officers. The assault left the inmate with fractures to his eye socket and cheekbone. At least 3 guards have also been found guilty of abusing prisoners. In 2016, MCC officer Rudell Clark Mullings, 54, was convicted of assaulting a female inmate the previous year. The grim truth is that far more abuse undoubtedly occurred. It was simply covered up A prisoner named Fabian Morrison told Gothamist that “a crazy officer… attacked me and I defended myself. I’m the seventh inmate he put hands on. He is really [messed] up in the head from the military. ” Sometimes, the beatings even led to prisoners paying the ultimate price. In September 2017, Andrew Laufer filed a lawsuit alleging that 35-year-old Roberto Grant had been beaten to death in his cell at MCC in May 2015. Prison staff tried to cover it up by telling his family he’d died of an overdose. Grant’s autopsy showed that he had suffered “blunt force injuries of the head, neck, torso, and extremities,” but had no detectable traces of drugs in his system. The jewelry thief’s ex-wife, Nicole Morrison, sued the BOP in 2017 for $20 million. In the end, despite a judge declaring that the “death of a federal prisoner by blunt force trauma… represents an epic failure to provide a safe and secure environment,” she settled for $75,000 in 2022. “A human life isn’t worth anything,” she said in a statement. At the MCC, that assessment wasn’t far off. But it was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to rampant corruption. In 2018, a prison guard pleaded guilty to taking more than $25,000 in cash bribes to smuggle cellphones, alcohol, and food to a wealthy Turkish inmate. The guard, Victor Casado, was later sentenced to 3 years in prison by a judge who called the crime an assault on “our entire system of justice. ” But that kind of thing was commonplace at the MCC. And it wasn’t the worst. In November 2021, the U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment against MCC employees and inmates. And it sent a shockwave through the prison system. The indictment charged them with a wide-ranging conspiracy involving bribery

smuggling of contraband like drugs, alcohol, and cellphones, narcotics distribution, and obstruction of justice. As a Rolling Stone article at the time phrased it, the indictment read like something “straight out of The Wire. ” The smuggling plot involved MCC employees working hand in hand with some of the most violent gangs in New York City. Several MCC staff were caught smuggling drugs, alcohol, and phones to inmates - including members of violent gangs - including some tied to the Crips. The scheme exposed deep corruption inside the prison. The most-high-profile of these inmates was Anthony “Harv” Ellison, who was serving a 24-year sentence for offenses including the kidnapping and robbery of the rapper Tekashi69. One of the MCC employees, a unit secretary named Sharon Griffith-McKnight, was specifically involved in smuggling contraband to Ellison — who was awaiting sentencing in the facility at the time. Taking the grift to the next level, Griffith-McKnight wrote to the judge in Ellison’s case, calling for leniency for a man she termed a “model inmate. ” The indictment claimed that by doing so, she tried to “influence” and “impede an official proceeding” since she “knew at the time that Ellison was not, in fact, a ‘model inmate. ’” Joyner was also charged with threatening an inmate - and directing others to do the same - to keep the contraband scheme secret from the feds Joyner was sentenced to 43 months in prison in July 2023 for accepting over $70,000 in bribes to smuggle contraband and attempting to have an inmate assaulted. Griffith-McKnight was sentenced to 4 years of probation, including 6 months of home confinement. Feliciano was charged with wire fraud and sentenced to 5 months in prison, plus 2 years of supervised release. One judge bluntly stated that the MCC was “run by morons,” and the record doesn’t offer much of a rebuttal. The head warden was replaced four times in two years. Not exactly a sign of a well run organization. But that’s exactly what happened at MCC following Epstein’s death. The head warden at the MCC when Epstein died was Lamine N’Diaye. He was reassigned to the BOP’s Northeast Regional Office in Philadelphia just days later, on August 13th, 2019. Marti Licon-Vitale was brought in to clean things up - but she seemed to make matters worse. Her yearlong tenure was marked by a rampant COVID outbreak, inmate complaints about poor conditions, a smuggled gun, and a prisoner’s death. She abruptly quit in January 2021, just a week after staff left a 26-year-old inmate - reportedly with the mental capacity of an 8-year-old - in a holding cell for 24 hours. Eric Williams replaced Licon-Vitale as interim warden. A controversial choice. He had overseen executions in another prison, but ran his facility effectively. He had been the warden of a medium-security federal prison in Illinois, but was transferred to the federal death chamber in Indiana to serve as the executioner on at least 5 occasions. Rapid leadership turnover at MCC made accountability nearly impossible. Without stable management, corruption, abuse, and decay thrived. David Patton, the executive director and attorney-in-chief of the Federal Defenders of New York, points to this lack of accountability as one of the biggest issues – not just at the MCC but in the BOP at large. “My experience with the BOP, at least with the facilities here… is a revolving door of wardens. Nobody seems to own the management of those facilities,” he told AP. But whatever the underlying reasons, the MCC certainly failed dismally in keeping Epstein alive so that he could complete his trial. The DOJ’s Report on the BOP’s Custody, Care, and Supervision of Jeffrey Epstein was damning. It found numerous and serious failures by MCC New York staff constituting misconduct and dereliction of their duties. In particular, these failures resulted in Epstein being unmonitored and alone in his cell with an excessive amount of bed linen for almost 8 hours, despite supposedly being under constant supervision. It was officially ruled that Epstein used this bed linen to hang himself. They also failed to ensure that Epstein was assigned a cellmate, which had previously been determined necessary by the prison’s own threadbare Psychology Department. The report found that MCC employees were responsible for one of the biggest controversies of Epstein’s death – the highly suspicious missing video surveillance footage. According to the report, “system deficiencies resulted in nearly all of the cameras in and around the SHU… to not record video starting in late July 2019 and continuing through the date of Epstein’s death. ” In 2021, the MCC was temporarily closed due to poor conditions, crumbling infrastructure, and security failures - and it looks like it will remain shut for good. Epstein’s death highlighted the failings - but what happens at a prison that isn’t being watched? While the MCC remains shuttered, its former inmates are spending life behind bars elsewhere. Take a look at where a Mexican drug lord spends his time in This is What El Chapo's Prison Cell is Really Like. Or click on this video instead.