Private prison inmates sue Queens corporate jailer over coronavirus ‘rampage’
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At least 38 inmates have tested positive for COVID-19 at the 222-bed Queens Detention Facility near JFK Airport. Google Maps.
By David Brand
A group of COVID-sick inmates stuck in New York City’s lone private lockup have sued their corporate jailer, demanding release and claiming in court documents that the firm has failed to prevent the “rampant” spread of the coronavirus, provide adequate care or even clean the facility.
Each of the four plaintiffs suffer from respiratory ailments and share bunk beds or dorms with other sick inmates at the 222-bed Queens Detention Facility, operated by the corporation GEO Group under contract with the U.S. Marshals Service.
Overall, nearly one-in-five inmates have tested positive for COVID-19 at the GEO Group jail since April 2, according to a series of court-mandated reports.
“Despite this alarming statistic — or perhaps because of it — [GEO Group] have stopped testing altogether, ceased regular temperature checks or monitoring in any manner for the virus, and inexplicably declared that all but one inmate has ‘recovered’ from the virus,” the four plaintiffs claim in their complaint filed Wednesday in Brooklyn Federal Court by attorneys from the firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.
The jail, which houses federal cooperating witnesses, is located in a warehouse near JFK Airport and is separated into seven dormitory-style housing units lined with bunk beds.
The coronavirus has spread rapidly because inmates “spend nearly all of their waking hours in close proximity to other inmates, either in the day rooms of their dormitories or in recreational areas common to the entire facility,” the plaintiffs state.
An eight-cell special housing unit, called the “SHU” by inmates, has 16 beds and was used to isolate COVID-sick detainees when the outbreak first began in March.
But the number of ill inmates quickly surpassed the SHU’s capacity, according to twice-weekly reports ordered by a Brooklyn federal judge. Nevertheless, GEO Group continued to mingle sick and healthy detainees in the same open dorms, the complaint states.
Until late April, the court document continues, “symptomatic or positive inmates were cohorted with the general population and slept next to others at high risk of developing severe illness due to their existing medical conditions.”
The only named plaintiff in the lawsuit, Marquis Collier, 28, has asthma and was forced to share a bunk bed with an inmate who tested positive for COVID-19, the complaint states. The inmate in the bunk next to Collier also tested positive for the illness, but continued to sleep in the same bed, the document continues. Collier has experienced symptoms but has not been tested, according to the complaint.
A 26-year-old unnamed plaintiff has been hospitalized twice for COVID-19 but was not isolated from other inmates upon his return to the Queens Detention Facility, the complaint states. Another unnamed plaintiff, 28, said he also tested positive for COVID-19 but remained in his open dorm with other inmates who were not yet sick.
The fourth plaintiff, a 35-year-old man, suffers from asthma and pre-diabetes but continues to sleep “in close proximity to at least three inmates who have tested positive for COVID-19,” the complaint continues.
GEO Group has also failed to sanitize the facility, even as “the virus continues its rampage,” the plaintiffs claim.
“Inmates are responsible for cleaning the dorms, bathrooms, and common areas, and they have not been provided sufficient cleaning supplies to do so,” they write in the complaint. “Inmates and staff lack basic personal protective equipment like clean and effective face masks and access to laundry and clean bed linens.”
The contents of the complaint are backed up by six inmates who have contacted the Eagle to describe the worsening conditions in the Queens Detention Facility since late-March. Each said social distancing is all but impossible in the facility’s wide-open dormitories, where inmates sleep on bunk beds.
“Everyone’s coughing, sneezing on top of each other,” one inmate said. “You cannot do social distancing in this jail because everyone is so on top of each other.”
Jail staff were not mandated to wear protective equipment until early April, GEO Group said last month. An inmate who spoke with the Eagle on May 1 said many jail guards still refuse to wear masks.
At least 25 jail staff members have so far tested positive for COVID-19, prompting extreme staff shortages — including instances where one guard patrols two different dorms — several inmates told the Eagle.
The jails most famous inmate, Brooklyn rapper Tekashi 69, was released in March over the risk of exposure to the coronavirus. A federal judge last month refused to send a defendant to the Queens Detention Facility, citing “the risk of death” inside the jail.
In response to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for GEO Group said the corporation “plays no role in decisions related to the release of individuals from federal pre-trial detention facilities.”
“Those decisions are made exclusively by the federal government and the courts,” the spokesperson added. “Our company has taken comprehensive steps at all our facilities to address and mitigate the risks of COVID-19 to all those in our care and our employees, who are on the front lines making daily sacrifices to provide care for all those in our facilities.”
Since the Eagle began reporting on the outbreak at the GEO Group jail in March, U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks and Councilmember Donovan Richards have sent letters seeking information from the jail’s warden, William Zerillo, another defendant named in the class action lawsuit.
The response from Zerillo and GEO Group failed to assuage Richards’ concerns about the jailhouse conditions.
“Nothing in that letter gave me assurances that they’re taking this as seriously as they should,” Richards said. “It seems like this thing has spread like wildfire there, at the expense of workers and the inmates.”
