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But even if his sentence is cut short, every day he spends on Rikers Island will be its own sort of hell.
“Regardless of what you think of Weisselberg politically, spending 100 days at Rikers Island is going to be absolute misery,” warned attorney Eliza Orlins, a public defender whose clients routinely get shipped there. “People are suffering there. They’re not getting their medical appointments. They’re not getting food. They’re not getting clean, sanitary conditions. It’s horrible for every single person who has to go there.”
The conditions are so dire that human rights activists have been actively trying to close down the jail for years. And a detainee lawsuit that led to a landmark settlement with the city that placed a federal monitor in charge of improving the dire conditions there has amounted to nothing. Seven years and $18 million dollars later, the effort has come under scrutiny for its poor results—a shocking failure that led the news outlet
Gothamist to assess that the “city jails system is actually far deadlier and more dangerous than it was.”
The problems for Weisselberg are expected to start as soon as he arrives on the island, a depressing and stark assortment of gray buildings on an island in the East River between the Bronx and Queens.
As part of the slow intake process, he'll wait alongside New Yorkers plucked from the streets for violent crimes and emotionally unstable outbursts on city subways—sharing space for an undetermined amount of time with members of dangerous gangs like the Dominican-American "Trinitarios," who assert a powerful presence on Rikers.
According to defense lawyers who spoke to The Daily Beast, Rikers' delayed intake system is perhaps the most grueling part of the process—and the site of many of the suicides that are taking place there with increased frequency.
Last year, a shocking 19 inmates killed themselves at the jail, and human rights advocates point to the difficult time they spend in densely crowded holding pens. Last month, Kevin Bryan endured 23 hours that forced him to sleep on the floor. He hanged himself upon arriving at his housing center.
Weisselberg is expected to be sent there as well. The New York City Department of Corrections told The Daily Beast that “sentenced individuals are typically housed at the Eric M. Taylor Center” until the jail’s screening process determines where Weisselberg will be housed permanently.
The conditions of Rikers' intake system is so dire that on Tuesday, just as Weisselberg was headed there, the city's corrections department was
obligated to update a federal judge on how it was trying to limit the wait to 24 hours at a facility described in
court documents as plagued by "security failures" that led to a nearly three-fold increase in fights and "use of head strikes and unnecessary uses of force" by guards. These were improvements U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain had demanded more than a year and a half ago.
Upon Weisselberg's arrival, it can go one of two ways. Either he’ll be placed alongside detainees awaiting trial—who tend to be more violent and erratic—or with sentenced prisoners who are largely trying to serve their short sentences in relative calm.
“On the sentence side, everyone tries to keep their nose down, because it’s so short,” said Winston Nguyen, who spent the first half of 2019 at Rikers for a financial crime.
“If he’s mixed with detainees, a lot of the problem is that the housing gets overturned so often. There tend to be more fights. Someone is always trying to assert dominance. When I was there, there was a large gang element. The guards ask you, ‘Do you identify with one gang or another?’ So it doesn’t cause drama,” Nguyen said. “They’ll put him anywhere.”
Weisselberg will join the 331 prisoners who are currently serving sentences for city crimes that are punished with less than a year behind bars.
But Nguyen, who now teaches at a private high school in Brooklyn, warned that Rikers is still unbearable for everyone.
In lawsuits against the city reviewed by The Daily Beast, detainees frequently complain about the lack of the most basic supplies: clean undergarments, blankets to stay warm in the icy winter, and air conditioning to keep cool in the blazing hot summer.
Weisselberg will get his city-issued Bob Barker khaki top and bottom, made of a rough canvas material that rubs harshly against the skin. But it’ll be up to him to bring underwear, socks, and a white undershirt. These undergarments are highly coveted behind bars, because inmates can only keep what they bring in with them—up to five at a time.
Nguyen recalled how he wore five pairs of underwear on his way in and layered several socks over his feet, which made it difficult to keep his shoes on—not that he kept the shoes anyway. Rikers issues shoes to inmates, but popular sizes disappear quickly, so some inmates get stuck wearing what Nguyen called oversized “clown shoes” for months.