Queens private jail can’t extinguish coronavirus ‘wildfire,’ councilman says
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Councilmember Donovan Richards received a letter from the warden at the Queens Detention Facility, New York City’s only privately run jail. Photo by Jeff Reed/City Council
By David Brand
The only New York City councilmember with a private jail in his district says the multibillion-dollar contractor running the lockup has failed to protect staff and inmates from the coronavirus “wildfire” inside.
So far, 38 inmates and 21 staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 inside the 222-bed Queens Detention Facility — up from three people total on April 3 — according to the latest court-ordered report issued by the jail’s warden Tuesday.
The warden, William Zerillo, also sent information in a letter to Councilmember Donovan Richards, who represents the industrial zone near JFK Airport where the jail is located. Zerillo works for GEO Group, one of the nation’s largest private prison firms.
But the information from Zerillo and GEO Group did not alleviate Richards’ concerns about the jailhouse conditions.
“Nothing in that letter gave me assurances that they’re taking this as seriously as they should,” he said. “It seems like this thing has spread like wildfire there, at the expense of workers and the inmates.”
Richards said all inmates should be tested inside the private jail, where defendants await trial or sentencing in federal court.
GEO Group has stopped testing inmates, however, according to its two most recent court-ordered reports. The corporation reported testing 41 people on April 16 and again on April 21.
“I believe every detainee has to be tested,” Richards said. “No one should be in there without being tested. We don’t want to lose lives.”
The information from GEO Group came in response to a letter that Richards sent after the Eagle first reported on the spread of the coronavirus inside the Queens Detention Facility’s seven open dormitories.
‘On top of each other’
Six inmates who have contacted the Eagle to describe the worsening conditions in the Queens Detention Facility say social distancing is all but impossible because they 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.”
The inmates also said there has been a severe staff shortage — including a single correction officer patrolling two separate units — as employees get sick or otherwise call out. GEO Group reported that 21 staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 and six have recovered.
“A lot of the hard-working folks there deserve to be protected as well,” Richards said. “They live in our community; they could be asymptomatic and carrying the virus around.”
AP Photo/Ted S. Warren
GEO Group reported that 27 detainees have recovered from COVID-19, but did not provide information about how they made that determination. GEO Group did not respond to an email seeking more information.
Concern from congressman
U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, the local member of Congress, also received a letter from Zerillo, the jail warden, in response to questions he had about conditions in the Queens Detention Facility. Meeks’ spokesperson provided a copy of the letter to the Eagle Thursday.
The letter to Meeks, dated April 20, said one physician works in the jail for 16-24 hours a week to handle the outbreak of COVID-19. The on-call physician had been working a single eight-hour shift on Sundays. Six inmates have been taken to the hospital, including one who was admitted for COVID-19 treatment, Zerillo added.
As of April 18, Zerillo said, “all detainees are safely housed by their appropriate legal status, security concerns and health conditions.”
One of the seven dorms — known as F-Unit Dorm — is being used to isolate “all laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases,” Zerillo wrote.
Five other dorms — A, B, C, D and E — are used to “house multiple quarantined contacts not displaying signs and symptoms,” he continued. The eight-cell restrictive housing unit is used to isolate inmates with “suspected cases,” he said. That unit — referred to as “the SHU” by inmates — was used early on to isolate some people suspected of having COVID-19 but did not have nearly enough space to isolate everyone in need, multiple inmates said.
The final housing unit, “G-Unit,” is used to house detainees considered “asymptomatic or no longer infectious,” Zerillo wrote.
The letter to Meeks does not explain how the jail staff makes that determination that an inmate is “no longer infectious.”
The accounts of some inmates seem to contradict some of the information provided by the warden.
One man who contacted the Eagle on April 14 said he had tested positive for COVID-19 but continued to share a bunk bed with another inmate.
“This is the worst I’ve ever felt in my life,” the man said. He asked to remain anonymous because, like most of the inmates, he is a cooperating witness in a federal case. “They’re not giving us the proper care that I think they should be giving us.”
The jail’s most famous detainee, Bushwick rapper Tekashi 69, was released earlier this month after a federal judge determined that his asthma made him vulnerable to the coronavirus.
A Brooklyn federal judge on Tuesday declined to set bail on a defendant charged with trafficking methamphetamine. Federal Magistrate Judge James Orenstein issued $100,000 bond and electronic monitoring rather than send him to GEO Group’s Queens Detention Facility.
“At GEO, the virus is spreading,” Orenstein said. “I cannot say the risk of non-appearance is near the risk of death.”
