Meeks asks feds for info as COVID-19 surges inside privately run Queens jail

AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

By David Brand

U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks is demanding more information from the warden of New York City’s lone privately-run jail, where the rate of COVID-19 among inmates has surged by 1700 percent in less than two weeks.

At least 36 inmates have tested positive for COVID-19 at the 222-bed Queens Detention Facility near JFK Airport — up from two on April 3 — according to the latest court-ordered report issued Friday by GEO Group, the private prison firm that runs the jail under contract with the U.S. Marshals Service. Nearly all of the inmates are cooperating witnesses in federal court cases who are awaiting their own sentencing dates.

The percentage of inmates with COVID-19 at the private lockup in Springfield Gardens is nearly twice the rate of infection at Rikers Island jails. Ten staff members also have confirmed cases of COVID-19, GEO Group reported.

Meeks sent his letter to the jail’s warden, William Zerillo, and the U.S. Marshals Service in response to a Tuesday report indicating that 25 inmates had COVID-19. 

That tally, Meeks wrote, “is alarming given the size of the prison population, and limitations in providing space or to quarantine inmates.”

Meeks included a list of “urgent and time sensitive questions” in the letter. He wants to know how many inmates have been taken to the hospital since March 13 and how GEO Group promotes social distancing inside the jail’s seven open dormitories, where inmates sleep on bunkbeds. Inmates and defense attorneys say the sickest individuals have been isolated in the eight-cell restrictive housing unit — a unit that is not equipped to handle an unprecedented public health crisis.

In total, six inmates and the wives of two others have contacted the Eagle to describe the worsening conditions inside the jails open dorms.

“Everyone’s coughing, sneezing on top of each other,” said one inmate, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “We’re not practicing social distancing because you cannot do social distancing in this jail because everyone is so on top of each other.”

Another man said he has tested positive for COVID-19 and shares a bunk bed with another inmate who worried for his own health.

“This is the worst I’ve ever felt in my life,” he said. “They’re not giving us the proper care that I think they should be giving us.”