The Feds want nothing to do with Rikers

City And State

A federal judge approved the city’s plan to make long-sought changes on Rikers Island, essentially eliminating the threat of a federal takeover for at least the next several months. The order filed Tuesday marks a win for the city and the Department of Correction and comes days after the federal monitor in the case expressed doubt about the city’s willingness to follow its recommendations for the proposed action plan. 

“This action plan represents a way to move forward with concrete measures now to address the ongoing crisis at Rikers Island,” Southern District Judge Laura Taylor Swain wrote in the order, while making clear that the case could turn depending on the city’s progress in implementing the plan. “The Court has approved the proposed measures contained within the action plan, in full recognition that further remedial relief may be necessary should Defendants not fulfill their commitments and demonstrate their ability to make urgently needed changes.”

The city filed the proposed action plan in late May after federal monitors appointed to oversee the department threatened to take control of the system if the city failed to comply with their recommendations. The jail system has been under federal supervision since a class action lawsuit in 2015 alleged rampant abuse and dysfunction.

The plan filed in May outlines timelines for proposed reforms, which include tamping down on abuse of sick leave policies among correction officers, hiring new leadership under a modified chain of command, improving infrastructure at the jail facilities and expediting correction officer disciplinary proceedings.

The department submitted an updated version of the plan on Friday after Swain gave it two weeks to come up with a more detailed proposal. During that time, a dispute over the hiring of wardens outside of the department became a point of contention between the monitors, along with the Legal Aid Society, which represents the jail population in the case, and the department. The monitors wrote in a letter to Swain on Friday that the city refused to agree to their recommendation to hire wardens outside of the department, and was unwilling to seek special permission from the court to circumvent city and state laws prohibiting it from doing so. 

Swain indicated that the department has committed to seeking special permission from the court if it encounters other legal barriers that prohibit it from implementing recommendations. She also denied Legal Aid’s request to set a briefing schedule for a possible contempt motion to trigger the federal takeover.

Queens courthouse jail is in atrocious condition

NY Daily News  

Working conditions at the Queens Criminal Court complex’s detention center are so disgusting, correction officers have complained to state and federal workplace oversight agencies.

Rats scurry in the kitchen, roaches crawl in the locker room, and flies hover over hopelessly backed-up toilets, say filings with the state Public Employee Safety and Health Bureau and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

“The appalling conditions in the Queens courts are consistent with the decaying infrastructure at our jail facilities,” said Benny Boscio, president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association.

Photos obtained by the Daily News show an overflowing toilet, ripped-up flooring stained with water from leaks, peeling paint, black mold creeping up the walls, a trashed locker room, and a disheveled food storage area.

As if working conditions weren’t bad enough, the Correction Department’s staffing crisis has cut the number of officers regularly working at the Queens Detention Center in Kew Gardens.

Roughly 40 officers out of the center’s detachment of 173 were moved to Rikers Island, and an additional 12 officers have retired since May 2021, correction sources said.

On top of that, the Correction Department has been constantly “redeploying” or temporarily moving officers to Rikers from the Queens courts on a spot basis, further reducing available staff.

The complaint alleges a security entry gate in the intake area has been broken for months, forcing officers to leave the gate unsecured.

The complaint to state officials describes food being stored improperly, broken laundry machines and cleaning equipment, and a filthy kitchen and rest rooms. Devices that filter air and drinking water for the detainees have been broken for months, the complaint said.

A factor in keeping the facility clean is that those jobs are usually done by detainees from Rikers — but there hasn’t been such a work detail in months, said Correction Department sources.

The situation has slowed down court operations by delaying the production of detainees at court hearings, said the sources.

 

Hundreds of Rikers Island C.O.'s suspended following extortion mandate deadline

 

NY Post 

Nearly 600 correction officers with the already depleted city Department of Correction workforce were expected to be placed on unpaid leave Wednesday for not getting inoculated against COVID-19, city officials said.

The roughly 570 uniformed members will be relieved of duty if they showed up for their shifts without getting immunized against the deadly virus following Tuesday’s deadline, according to DOC spokesperson Patrick Gallahue.

An additional 708 corrections officers have applied for an exemption from the vaccine mandate due to religious or medical reasons. They will remain on the job with weekly testing protocols as their applications are reviewed, according to Gallahue.

The figures were released Wednesday afternoon, hours after city officials came seemingly unprepared to the mayor’s daily morning press conference — in which DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi quipped it would take “a level of math that is going to give everyone a headache” to provide a total number of officers on unpaid leave due to the mandate.

The DOC, whose employees have been among the city’s most vaccine-hesitant, did see a 31-point boost in its vaccination rate in the weeks leading up to the deadline for city jail workers.

 

Rikers Gulag

NY Post 

Dozens of men crammed together for days in temporary holding cells amid a pandemic. Filthy floors sullied with rotten food, maggots, urine, feces and blood. Plastic sheets for blankets, cardboard boxes for beds and bags that substituted for toilets. 

This is what the epicenter of the crisis on Rikers Island — which has a whopping $1.2 billion budget for fiscal year 2022 — looked like for months.

The Post obtained exclusive photos showing the intake cells at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center on Rikers Island between July and late September where hundreds of inmates languished for days or weeks on end in violation of city regulations, which require they be assigned a housing area within 24 hours.

The images show as many as 26 men stuffed body to body in single cells where they were forced to relieve themselves inside plastic bags and take turns sleeping on the fetid floors.

 In one image, an inmate is seen curled up on the floor — outside of the holding cell — because there was nowhere else to put him and when the facility was ready to burst, or when elected officials came to visit, detainees were stashed in a gym, Department of Correction sources said.  

“It was inhumane … They’re not supposed to be there that long, the intake is just a place to process the inmates,” a jailhouse source told The Post of the conditions at OBCC, which housed most new admissions to the jail before intake was moved to another, larger facility in late September with double the clinic space. 

“And the sad thing about it is … you couldn’t do anything about it, it was all management,” the source said. “They knew what was going on and they did nothing.” 

Internal records obtained by The Post offer a glimpse of the problem’s scope and indicate at least 256 inmates festered inside the OBCC intake beyond the 24-hour limit between June and late September because of “medical delay” and “shortage of DOC staff.”

One of those detainees — 42-year-old Isaabdul Karim — died three weeks after he spent 10 days “mired in intake,” where he contracted COVID-19, his lawyers have said. His cause of death is still being determined by the city’s medical examiner. 

During a five-day period in mid-September, shortly before most intake processes were moved to the Eric M. Taylor Center, at least 105 inmates were inside the crowded cells long after they should have been moved, records show. 

In response, a spokesperson for the DOC said the “conditions in these photos do not exist at Rikers Island today.” 

“We’ve closed OBCC’s intake and reopened the Eric M. Taylor Center for intake purposes, ended overcrowding and long waits in intake, and thoroughly cleaned this and many other facilities,” the spokesperson said.

 So the D.O.C. had to reopen a jail to ease intake. Which confirms that City Council's legislating and Mayor de blasio's decision to close Rikers exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in the prisons.

DCAS takes over Rikers jailhouse

 

Queens Eagle 

In a major step toward the closing of Rikers Island, the New York City Department of Correction transferred over the oldest Rikers correctional facility to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, the agencies announced this week. 

The handing over of the James A. Thomas Center, named after DOC’s first Black warden, marks the first time the DOC has transferred over a Rikers facility to DCAS, which now owns the building. 

This month’s transfer, and the others to follow, are some of the earliest steps in the city’s transition into its borough-based jails program and the eventual closure of Rikers Island as a jail facility.

“This is a major milestone in the historic plan to close Rikers Island and create safer, fairer, and more modern borough-based jails,” DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi said in a statement. "Being able to close Rikers and create borough-based facilities is a natural result of our city's multifaceted efforts to reduce its jail population and end the era of mass incarceration.”

The James A. Thomas Center, which closed in 2021, was built in 1933 and was the island’s first permanent jail. 

Now that it has been transferred, DCAS and the Rikers Island Advisory Committee will plan a sustainable use for the facility, as part of the city’s Renewable Rikers Act. Under the law, the island could become home to several renewable energy sites if studies conducted in the coming years prove it to be feasible. 

"Today marks a historic occasion for ending mass incarceration in our city and re-imagining Rikers Island," said Lisette Camilo, the commissioner of DCAS. "DCAS is eager to do its part to build a brighter future by transforming Rikers Island into a hub for sustainability."

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who called closing Rikers Island a “moral imperative,” spearheaded the borough-based jails program, which was approved by the City Council in 2017. 

“Transferring these facilities from DOC to DCAS brings our plan to create a smaller, safer, and more humane jail system even closer to reality,” de Blasio said. 

This is really happening. And with the horrendous bail reform law, they did this entirely on purpose at the expense of the citizenry and society. Beware of anyone who utters the word "re-imagine" 

Rikers did it again, this time the fugitive is COVID positive

 

NY Daily News

 For the third time in less than a month, a Rikers Island inmate was mistakenly released — this one a deadbeat dad and golf pro who walked out of jail with coronavirus.

James Reino’s release was the subject of a jaw-dropping hearing Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Reino, 55, was supposed to have attended the hearing via video from jail after avoiding for 13 months Justice Matthew Cooper’s contempt order for failure to pay $85,000 in child support.

 But Department of Correction staff — apparently amid confusion over Reino’s cases in matrimonial court, family court and criminal court — released him late Thursday.

“This was important to me — that he not be released from custody until money was forthcoming to Ms. Reino,” Judge Matthew Cooper said.

“For some reason Corrections says it’s unaware my arrest order is still in effect.”

Reino was also confused — especially since he hadn’t completed quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19 at Rikers.

“He rang me this morning and said he was out and that he didn’t know why,” said Reino’s attorney, Stephanie Conners. “He is actually supposed to be in quarantine. He has indicated to me he has seven days left on that quarantine.”

Nevertheless Reino was handed a MetroCard and released in the middle of the night.

“If there were other people on the subway, who was near him? How do you expose people to that? It’s a little bit insane,” said Gary Rosen, a lawyer for Reino’s second wife, with whom he shares four kids between the ages of 14 and 20.

Cooper said he understood that Reino was quarantining at his sister’s home on Long Island.

So this guy was on NYC Transit and the LIRR. Plus there are about 3 or 4 variants out there. This might make the city's recovery a little more problematic.

City paid consulting firm to manipulate the violence statistics at Rikers Island with shady and unethical tech methods

 

Propublica

In April 2017, partners from McKinsey & Company sent a confidential final report to the New York City corrections commissioner. They had spent almost three years leading an unusual project for a white-shoe corporate consulting firm like McKinsey: Attempting to stem the tide of inmate brawls, gang slashings and assaults by guards that threatened to overwhelm the jail complex on Rikers Island.

The report recounted that McKinsey had tested its new anti-violence strategy in what the firm called “Restart” housing units at Rikers. The results were striking. Violence had dropped more than 50% in the Restart facilities, the McKinsey partners wrote.

The number was bogus. Jail officials and McKinsey consultants had jointly rigged the Restart program in its earliest phase to all but guarantee there would be few violent episodes, according to documents and interviews. They stacked the units with inmates they believed to be compliant and unlikely to get into fights or to attack staff.

Publicly, McKinsey and top corrections officials touted the drop in violence in these units as an early sign of their project’s success — without disclosing that they had tilted the scale in favor of that result. After McKinsey handed off the inmate selection process, about a year into the firm’s work at Rikers, jail officials continued to manipulate the population of the Restart units to keep their violence numbers low.

In October of this year, the New York City Council voted to approve Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposal to close Rikers. The vote occurred during the same month that a federal monitor, appointed by a court to oversee reform at Rikers, revealed that violence by jail guards there continues to worsen. Overall, using the metrics employed by McKinsey, jailhouse violence has risen nearly 50% since the firm began its assignment.

The full story of how New York City came to pay McKinsey $27.5 million only to abandon many of the firm’s recommendations and decide to shut Rikers has never been told. A ProPublica investigation, based on interviews with 36 people, half of whom worked directly on the project, as well as more than 10,000 pages of project documents, internal emails and other records, reveals that problems dogged the project at every stage.

Among the issues that plagued the project: McKinsey, which had never before advised a jail or prison system, made data errors that further undercut the results it reported from Restart units. The firm also persuaded the Department of Correction to spend millions on the sorts of advanced data analytics favored by McKinsey’s corporate clients. The department never ended up using many of the those data products, some of which simply did not work very well.

What happened at Rikers is a cautionary tale of a public-sector consulting boom that has emerged over the past decade. In recent years, government agencies across the United States have entrusted management consultants with more and more facets of public administration, from designing school systems to shaping Medicaid policy. Public-sector consulting in North America is a more than $9 billion industry, with an average yearly growth rate of about half a billion dollars, according to ALM Intelligence, which monitors the consulting business. McKinsey was anxious to expand into a potentially lucrative branch of public-sector work, corrections consulting, according to a former McKinsey consultant who worked on the project.

As I am sure you all are aware, and this is mostly directed to the residents of Kew Gardens, Mott Haven, Boerum Hill and Chinatown, this report was used to justify closing Rikers. 

In the future, who will they contract to study and manipulate the data after the four borough tower jails get built?

State Corrections Department drops a bunch of sex offenders in a Bayside motel

QNS


Following the alarming news of eight registered sex offenders allegedly placed at a Bayside motel, local elected officials on Thursday called for immediate removal of the individuals by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS).
Standing in front of the Anchor Inn Motel, located at 215-34 Northern Blvd, state Senator John Liu joined by Assemblymembers Nily Rozic and Ed Braunstein and City Councilman Paul Vallone addressed concerned residents at the site, where families take their children to a day care center across the street.

“We are extremely concerned to learn about the eight registered sex offenders placed in the Anchor Motor Inn last week by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision,” said Rozic. “The Inn, located on Northern Boulevard is diagonally across the street from an Academy of Early Education. As the safety of our community and our children is paramount, we urge DOCCS to find immediate alternative housing for these individuals.”
The eight registered sex offenders are listed on the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services sex offender registry. They are men who range in age from 33 to 66. Four of the individuals were said to be level 3, sexually violent offenders.
 
“It’s always a cause for concern when sex offenders are placed in a community, but it becomes truly alarming when their crimes are particularly heinous and violent,” said Vallone, whose office has been receiving phone calls about the issue. “Several of the offenders placed at the Anchor Inn have been convicted of sex crimes against children and the elderly, and placing them in direct proximity to a Pre-K and elementary schools in unacceptable.”
According to the Department of Criminal Justice, the Sex Offender Registration Act does not restrict where a registered sex offender may live. However, if the offender is under parole or probation supervision, other New York State laws may limit the offender from living within 1,000 feet of a school or other facility caring for children.
In a statement to QNS, a DOCCS spokesman confirmed that the men were recently re-located to the Anchor Inn, which is compliant with the state’s Sexual Assault Reform Act (SARA) restrictions, following the closure of their previous transitional housing by New York City agencies.
“To date, the individuals have abided by their conditions of supervision, which include reporting any change in residence. The Department’s parole officers will continue to actively supervise these individuals and impose any special conditions required, in accordance with the law and agency policy,” the DOCCS said. 

 Can't help but notice that the motel looks like a post office and is also AAA certified if that helps anyone.

Jails, jails, everywhere!

From the Times Ledger:

There was tension last week as Kew Gardens residents expressed their opposition to the city’s proposal to reopen the existing Queens Detention Center complex as part of the city’s plan to shutter the Rikers Island prison over the next 10 years.

Hundreds of Kew Gardens residents attended the Queens Scoping Hearing, held Wednesday, Sept. 26 at Queens Borough Hall, located at 120-55 Queens Blvd. City officials were unable to finish their sentences amidst the loud interruptions in the Helen Marshall Cultural Center.

Misael Syldor, of the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform — who was born and raised in Queens — delivered the testimony.

“At Rikers, people come out worse off than when they go in,” said Syldor. “The proposed facility in Queens is an opportunity for us to be closer to our loved ones, legal representation, and other services that will help them rehabilitate and become productive members of our communities.”

Audience members were divided on the closing of Rikers Island and the implementation of community-based borough jails. Residents who stood up to speak stated that there was no community involvement on the city’s plan to reopen the Queens jail complex.

In August, the de Blasio administration announced a proposal to redevelop Queens Detention Complex — located at 126-02 82nd Ave., adjacent to the Queens Criminal Courthouse — and the neighboring municipal parking lot into a corrections center with space for 1,510 prisoner beds.

“Why is $10 billion being funneled into the jail plan when that money can be used for creating affordable housing, our public schools and creating new roads,” asked Grace Wong. of Fresh Meadows.

Residents stressed the issues of overcrowding, parking availability, nearby schools, and transportation in the neighborhood.

Andrea Crawford, counsel to the Kew Gardens Improvement Association, said the city’s plan to build the jail complex will “cripple the neighborho­od,” and has no economic benefits to the community.


From CBS2:

Residents gave city representatives an earful in the Bronx Wednesday night in response to a plan to build a jail to help replace Rikers Island.

The opposition was loud and clear as families from Mott Haven spoke out angrily against the city’s plan to open a jail at an old tow pound on Concord Avenue.

“Some of us residents have made lives and raised families on Concord Avenue for over 70 years,” resident Myra Hernandez said. “We are enraged.”

Hernandez lives two blocks from the proposed site in the Bronx.

“For anyone to propose that this is going to be beneficial for these communities that are oppressed and marginalized, has no clue,” she said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to close the jails on Rikers Island and move towards a borough-based jail system. It would build facilities on the Concord Avenue property in the Bronx, Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, Centre Street in Manhattan, and 82nd Avenue in Queens.

From the NY Times:

When the city moved its youngest inmates from Rikers Island to a juvenile detention center last week, the goal was to shield them from the violence of the adult jail and place them in an age-appropriate setting, as required under a new state law.

But so far the mayhem has followed them.

Since last week, when the city’s youngest offenders began moving into Horizon Juvenile Center, there have been at least five violent episodes. These brawls among inmates have caused dozens of injuries to correction officers assigned to the center, union leaders said.

On Wednesday, 20 correction officers suffered minor injuries when a fight involving 16 inmates from two rival gangs broke out about 11:30 a.m., correction officials said. The officers’ union said the fight started when one group of teenagers, who were in school at the facility, spotted members of a rival gang in the hallway.

After the fight, unions representing correction officers and social workers, as well as two City Council members, criticized the mayor and city officials for moving the young inmates before addressing safety and security concerns.



Oh, shit!

Koslowitz ok with either jail or shelter but not both

From the Queens Chronicle:

Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills) is threatening to withdraw her support for the proposal to use the old Queens House of Detention in Kew Gardens as a jail again should the facilities on Rikers Island close in the coming years as planned.

The reason? The expanded use of the Comfort Inn across the street as a homeless shelter for single men.

“This is unacceptable. I will not support a prison and a homeless shelter,” Koslowitz told the Chronicle on Tuesday. “I’m not going to do that to my community.”

The Department of Homeless Services initially rented out 42 rooms inside the 123-28 82 Ave. mixed-use building — featuring 84 hotel rooms and 38 apartments — in late September with little advance notice.

But as of Tuesday, Koslowitz said there were 132 single homeless men housed there, eight more than the week before and 48 more than the DHS initially promised the capacity would be.

“The last I heard, it was 84. That’s what they said the number was going to be,” she said. “I have said something to the administration and I will say something further. I’m just too angry.”

Koslowitz, the head of the Queens Council delegation, officially came out last October in support of again using the Queens House of Detention — an incarceration facility until 2002 and a film production studio since — as the borough’s jail once Rikers closes.

According to the lawmaker and her colleagues, housing prisoners down the street from Queens County Criminal Court will save the city millions of dollars in inmate transportation costs each year.

Koslowitz said Tuesday she still believes that is true, but the cost savings simply don’t outweigh the community opposition to a larger-than-expected homeless shelter.

Pols oppose jail at Fort Totten

From the Queens Tribune:

State Assemblyman Edward Braunstein (D-Bayside) and Councilman Paul Vallone (D-Bayside) said that they are opposed to a proposal to create a new city Department of Correction training facility at Fort Totten.

Braunstein said that, according to a document his office received that was dated Sept. 26, the city has moved to re-use a portion of Fort Totten to create permanent home for a city Department of Correction training academy. In 2015, the city’s Fire Department—in collaboration with the city’s Office of Management and Budget and Design and Construction Department—initiated the first of two consultant studies on the proposal. An analysis of requirements for the site is expected to be completed this month, according to the document.

“I strongly oppose the creation of a new DOC training facility at Fort Totten and find it outrageous that the city is secretly considering this proposal, which could have a detrimental impact on our parkland,” Braunstein said. “Recently, Community Board 7 notified my office that DOC was considering a facility at Fort Totten. Upon receiving this information, my requests to various city agencies have failed to result in any substantive information. It is absolutely unacceptable that a proposal of this magnitude was not shared with elected officials and the community board for over two years.”

Braunstein called on Mayor Bill de Blasio to abandon plans for the facility at Fort Totten, while Vallone added that Bayside was the wrong community in which to locate such a facility.

From QNS:

In a letter addressed to Mayor Bill de Blasio on Jan. 11, state Senator Tony Avella raised concerns with the city’s “serious lack of information” in reference to certain project propositions by the Fire Department and Department of Corrections (DOC). The FDNY has proposed building a wind turbine at the Bay Terrace location, while DOC considers using it as the site of its new training academy.

After an alleged runaround from city agencies, Avella has filed a Freedom of Information (FOIL) request for documents pertaining to both proposals.

“What are you hiding?” Avella writes. “I would appreciate a full briefing on your plans by all those involved.”

Fort Totten — formally an active U.S. Army installation in the Bay Terrace section of the neighborhood — is currently used by the U.S. Army Reserve, NYPD and FDNY. Certain portions are designated public park areas.

For FY 2018, DOC allocated $1.1 billion to fund a “New Jail Facilities” project, prompted by Mayor de Blasio’s push to close Rikers Island and create neighborhood-based and decentralized jail sites. Avella questioned whether DOC’s interest in Fort Totten pertained to this move.

“I hope this is not a hidden plan to place a jail on the Fort,” Avella writes. “Such an attempt would be fought vigorously by the whole community.”

Rikers closure a land grab: union head

From the NY Post:

The union head who represents Rikers Island corrections officers slammed plans to close the jail complex as nothing more than a “political con game” and a “land grab” that would enrich well-connected real estate developers.

Elias Husamudeen, president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, said Sunday the closure plan has nothing to do with helping blacks and Latinos as some have argued, but “everything to do with business.”

The union big honed in on a report overseen by former New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman that called for the closing of Rikers within ten years — noting its claim that the city and state stand to gain $17 billion if the island is repurposed for use by LaGuardia Airport.

“It has everything to do with business,” Husamudeen said Sunday during an interview on John Catsimatidis’ 970 AM radio show. “There’s so much wrong with this. This is such a political con game.”\

Husamudeen pointed to the make-up of the Lippman commission, charging that only two people on it have experience with jails.

“The majority of the people on your committee are real estate developers,” he said, referring to Lippman’s commission. “This is really a sham, it really is. It’s a land grab.”

Husmudeen argued that politicians should be more focused on the safety of corrections officers, citing more than 2,000 assaults against union members since de Blasio became mayor.

“My thing is: take your island, take your jail, take the island. We don’t care. Make the jails safe,” he said.

One of the Rikers jails slated for closure

From PIX11:

Before the summer is over, one of the nine jail facilities on Rikers Island will be shut down.

That was the announcement on Tuesday from the Bill de Blasio Administration, which said that the move is the first step in a larger process of completely closing Rikers by 2027.

The announcement raised questions about the overall shutdown process, and also sparked criticism by the correction officers' union of City Hall's motives.

"Nobody's being realistic in talking about how they're actually going to shut the jails down," said Elias Husamudeen, president of the Correction Officers' Benevolent Association, or COBA, the correction officers' union.

In fact, Husamudeen said, relocating the facility's 580 inmates to other facilities on the 400-acre island will crowd cells and halls at those other facilities, making overall conditions less safe.

DOC commish made personal trips on city time

From the Daily News:

Correction Commissioner Cynthia Brann and eight top staffers have reached settlements in the wake of a damning probe that found they used city cars for personal travel.

The city Conflicts of Interest Board revealed the agreements six months after former commissioner Joseph Ponte resigned over his role in the scandal.

Brann paid a $6,000 fine after she was found to have used her city car to make 13 trips to shopping malls and three to Kennedy Airport at a time when she was a deputy commissioner.

"At the time, I erroneously believed that I was allowed to use my DOC (Department of Correction) take-home vehicle for all personal travel in case a DOC emergency required my immediate response and travel to a DOC facility,” she said, according to a disposition released Tuesday.

Brann ran afoul of the Conflicts of Interest Board again when she enlisted a subordinate to help her pay the fine.

The Queens-based Brann complained to an underling that it was difficult for her to obtain a certified check or money order because she didn’t have a New York bank account.

The pair came up with a way around the problem — she would write him a personal check for the amount of the fine, and he would obtain a cashier’s check drawn from his personal account.

But Brann later acknowledged that such an agreement violated a conflicts of interest law prohibiting public servants from using their positions to obtain a personal favor from a subordinate.

More city workers = more city vehicles

From the NY Times:

If it seems like traffic in New York City might be a bit worse than before, there may be an unexpected factor: city workers.

New York City’s sprawling municipal work force is driving more than it used to, city statistics reveal. City vehicles logged 102 million miles on the road in the last fiscal year, which ended in June, 25 percent more miles than in 2014, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first year in office.

Accidents are also up: Workers driving city-owned cars for the Department of Buildings were involved in 98 crashes last fiscal year, an increase from 22 crashes four years ago. Department of Correction vehicles were involved in 116 crashes, nearly double the number four years ago. The Department of Transportation and Parks Department fared no better.

The city’s fleet — everything from take-home cars to garbage trucks — now exceeds 30,000 vehicles, 10 percent larger than when Mr. de Blasio took office.

Disagreement over immigrant defense fund

From the Observer:

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito failed to reach an agreement on whether the $26 million the city will set aside to provide free legal counsel to undocumented immigrants will cover those convicted of violent crimes—though the mayor emphasized that the contracting for the program will lie entirely in his hands.

The “budget handshake” at City Hall—touted as the earliest since 1992—was all smiles and self-congratulation until a reporter inquired whether the mayor and speaker, both liberal Democrats and longtime allies, had resolved their difference on the matter. New York’s “sanctuary city” statutes forbid the NYPD or Department of Corrections from honoring federal requests to detain foreign nationals lacking proper paperwork, unless those individuals have been convicted of one of roughly 170 violent offenses, such as rape, murder or terrorism.

De Blasio told the Observer at his proposed spending plan roll-out in April that, while he would meet Mark-Viverito’s request he make permanent a pilot program for attorneys for those fighting deportation, he would not allow city dollars to go toward the defense of someone found guilty of one of those 170 crimes—a stance he maintained today.

Ponte out at DOC

From NBC:

Joseph Ponte will resign Friday, a day after Democratic City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito broke with Mayor de Blasio in calling for Ponte to step down. De Blasio has defended Ponte amid the latest allegations.

Staffers were drafting Ponte's resignation speech Thursday evening, the sources said.

Ponte, whose career in corrections has spanned more than four decades, was appointed commissioner in April 2014. The Marine Corps veteran previously led the Maine Department of Corrections, where he instituted substantial reforms. It was to Maine that the city's Department of Investigation, which investigates city agencies, officers or employees for potential corruption, alleged Ponte drove a city-owned vehicle in violation of guidelines.

BDB still doesn't see why Corrections commissioner's trips are a problem

From CBS 2:

It was a simple question about Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte, and a scathing Department of Investigation report showing he drove his city car out of state, logging 18,500 miles — charging gas and tolls to the city as well.

“You have to live under a rock not to know it’s not proper to take a city car and use it for personal use, no matter what your guidance is, something should say to you, it’s not the thing to do,” CBS2 Political Reporter Marcia Kramer asked Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“The bottom line is, he’s not from New York City. He’s not used to the New York City government, he’s used to other jurisdictions, each jurisdiction has a different approach,” de Blasio said.

Maybe not Mr. Mayor.

CBS2’s Kramer did some digging, and found out that prior to coming to the city, Ponte ran the Department of Corrections in Maine where he personally approved the policy on the use of state-owned vehicles.

“Off duty use of state-owned vehicles is prohibited,” the policy said.

And.

“Under no circumstances are state-owned gas credit cards and electronic toll devices to be used for personal use,” it continued.

A different jurisdiction, but the same approach as New York City.

A few more points to up the BDB sleaze factor.

Only the best and brightest

From Fox News/AP:

One applicant to be a New York City correction officer had been fired from his last job as a security guard for stealing. Another admitted he had regularly socialized with gang members. Another had debts of more than $400,000.

Yet all those candidates and dozens like them were hired last year to be part of the force overseeing nearly 11,000 inmates on Rikers Island, according to a yearlong city probe of jail hiring practices released Thursday. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the findings hours before they were to be announced.

The probe found systemic problems with the Department of Correction hiring system, including no recruiting strategy for the past six years, that allowed an alarmingly high number of hires who had arrest records, gang ties or other red flags that are markers for corruption.

Department of Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters said the chronic problems of violence, smuggling and bribery that plague the city jails can all be traced to the character and qualifications of the employees.

City investigators randomly pulled 153 application files of guards hired last year and found that 54 — or 35 percent — "presented significant red flags that should have either precluded their hiring outright or required further follow-up."

The probe found 79 hired officers admitted having friends or family members who were inmates — including one with nine relatives who had done time in Rikers. Ten new hires had been arrested more than once, and another 12 had been rejected by the significantly higher standards of the New York Police Department, including six for psychological reasons and one who failed a drug test.

Council members order NYPD to ignore the Feds

From the Politicker:

The New York City Council overwhelmingly passed legislation today to stop the Department of Correction and the NYPD from honoring immigration detainers issued by the federal government unless they are accompanied by a judge’s warrant.

The council voted 41 in favor and 6 against on two bills that will largely end cooperation with the federal government when it requests an immigration detainer — which asks Corrections or the NYPD to hold a person for 48 hours when they might otherwise be released so that the person can be handed over the the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. The requests are often made when an undocumented immigrant is being released from jail for another crime, or if they have been in NYPD custody for questioning.

Under the new legislation, which Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he supports, the city will honor immigration waivers if the federal government requests them with a judge’s warrant — and even then, only if the subject of the warrant was convicted within the last five years of a violent or serious crime, or is a possible match on the terrorism watch list.

So they passed a law that said the NYPD should ignore a federal judge's warrant? And only 2 Queens councilmembers (Vallone and Ulrich) voted against this? Holy crap, we're in big trouble.