NEW YORK CITY is offering prisoners at Rikers Island jail $6 per hour — a fortune by prison labor standards — and personal protective equipment if they agree to help dig mass graves on Hart Island, according to sources with knowledge of the offer. Avery Cohen, a spokesperson for the office of Mayor Bill de Blasio confirmed the general arrangement but said that it was not “Covid-specific,” noting that prisoners have been digging graves on Hart Island for years. The offer is only being made to those with convictions, not those jailed before trial. A memo sent to prisoners, according to a source who reviewed it, does not specify what the work on Hart Island will be, but the reference to PPE lea
WASHINGTON —Reports on Thursday revealed Sens. Richard Burr, N.C., and Kelly Loeffler, Ga., sold off significant amounts in stocks shortly before financial markets plunged because of the coronavirus pandemic. The senators are reported to have had knowledge about the spread of coronavirus ahead of their sales. ProPublica reported that Burr, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, dumped somewhere between $628,000 and $1.72 million of stocks, much of which came from the hospitality industry. The sales were made in 33 separate transactions on Feb. 13. Records of the transactions are available through the Securities and Exchange Commission. Just days before, Burr penned a Fox News op-ed wi
A Hastings-based Samoan chief has been found guilty of 10 charges in human trafficking and 13 charges in dealing with slaves. Joseph Auga Matamata, 65, was acquitted on one charge of trafficking. The jury of five men and six women took seven-and-a-half hours to reach the verdict. Matamata stood silent in the dock as the verdicts were readout. His offending is related to 13 Samoan nationals that he arranged to bring to New Zealand in small groups between 1994 and April last year. All of his victims, except three teenagers who were adopted by Matamata in 2016, came to New Zealand on three-month holiday visas. Some ended up staying for years, working long hours for Matamata for no pay. During t
“The city must drastically reduce the number of people in jail right now and limit new admissions to exceptional circumstances,” the board said in a statement Tuesday. “The city can follow the leads of Los Angeles County and Cuyahoga County [Ohio] which have already begun to release people to minimize a potential outbreak,” the statement continued. “The city must begin this process now. The city’s jails have particular challenges to preventing disease transmission on a normal day, and even more so during a public health crisis.” The board — the Correction Department’s oversight body — said the city should prioritize people in custody who are over 50 as well as those who are detained for paro
During a meeting of prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and court staff last week, a representative from the Seattle City Attorney’s Office warned that attorneys there were struggling with “moral issues” amid the ongoing spread of COVID-19. Chief among their concerns: coming to and going from the downtown jail. One of the courtrooms for Seattle Municipal Court is inside the jail, and prosecutors were becoming increasingly worried about their daily visits there and being caught in the facility in the event of an outbreak among staff or inmates. “The City Attorney’s office is handling moral issues with worry about jail lockdowns and attorneys being quarantined in the jail,” read minutes fr
A Department of Correction employee has died from the coronavirus — and the man’s grief-stricken brother said the family is reeling from the loss. “He just passed away Sunday morning so we’re in the midst of a lot of stress, a lot of grief,” Raymond Perez said of his brother, David Perez — an investigator at the Correction Department who died Sunday. “My brother was one of the best men on earth — very honorable,” the brother told the Daily News through tears. "He cared for his mother up until the last day he lived with her.” Correction Commissioner Cynthia Brann confirmed on Monday that one of their own had succumbed to the coronavirus. “Last night, a member of DOC staff who had tested posit
An Arizona correctional sergeant who blew the whistle on corruption and unsafe conditions inside a jail facility was found dead in an apparent suicide, officials confirmed to ABC News. Gabriela Contreras risked her position at the former Lewis Corrections Department in Buckeye last April when she leaked surveillance videos that revealed multiple jail units had cell doors that did not lock properly. Contreras initially turned over the videos and altered documentation regarding the broken locks anonymously but came forward in an exclusive interview with ABC15 a month later. The whistleblower was suspended for a week when she was caught downloading the videos. "I had enough," Contreras said dur
More than 1,000 Black men in Dothan, Alabama have been falsely accused and criminalized by a group of racist police intent on falsely imprisoning them. The 12 officers, identified as members of a terrorist hate group, routinely planted drugs and weapons on innocent Black men in order to arrest them and deny them due process while depriving them of freedom. According to the Henry County Report, the incidents occurred in Dothan, Alabama where at least a dozen White police officers, all members of a narcotics team supervised by Lt. Steve Parrish, who is now Dothan’s Police Chief, and Andy Hughes, Asst. Director of Homeland Security for Alabama. The wrongly accused Black men were charged and pr
More than 2½ years ago, defense attorneys released Baltimore Police body-camera footage showing Officer Richard Pinheiro Jr. placing drugs in a vacant lot and then acting as if he’d just discovered them. A year later, Pinheiro was convicted of fabricating evidence and misconduct in office, a decision upheld last week by a state appeals court. Prosecutors have dropped cases that relied on Pinheiro’s police work and say they’d never call him again as a witness. Still, Pinheiro remains on the city police force and keeps getting paid, working a desk job as internal affairs detectives continue their own investigation into whether he broke department policies when he broke the law. Police official
A Missouri man whose appeal of his 50-year sentence for burglary and assault has been backed by the W.N.B.A. star Maya Moore had his conviction overturned by a state judge on Monday. Before a packed courtroom in Jefferson City, Judge Daniel Green capped months of review by issuing a ruling that vacated the guilty verdict of the victim, Jonathan Irons, and ordered that he be released from the maximum-security prison where he has been behind bars for the last 23 years. Tears welled in Moore’s eyes as she sat in the front row, surrounded by nearly 20 members of her family and friends. “It felt so surreal,” she said, describing the moment in a brief interview shortly after the hearing was over.
