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Metro

Coronavirus cases surge at NYC’s lone privately run jail

By
Andrew Denney
Published April 22, 2020, 7:11 p.m. ET
The Queens Detention Facility where Tekashi 6ix9ine was released from in April.
The Queens Detention Facility where Tekashi 6ix9ine was released from in April.Dennis A. Clark

Thirty-eight inmates at the 222-bed federal lockup in Queens, New York City’s lone privately run jail, have tested positive for coronavirus, according to a report submitted on Tuesday to a federal judge.

Of those infected, 27 prisoners have reportedly recovered from COVID-19, the report to Brooklyn federal Judge Roslynn Mauskopf states.

GEO Group, the private firm that operates the jail through a contract with the US Marshals Service, also reports that there are 21 confirmed cases among its staff there, of whom six have recovered from the bug.

The company reported that tests were conducted on 41 inmates, though didn’t provide a total number for its staff.

Among the inmates who have recently won release from the Springfield Gardens-based facility because of concerns about COVID-19 include rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine and Rasedur Raihan — an accused meth smuggler whose case has been widely cited among city attorneys seeking to win freedom for their own clients.

Although smaller than other New York City jails, the infection rate at the Queens facility based on the reported numbers — 17 percent — is the highest in the city.

The New York City Department of Correction said on Wednesday that 369 inmates tested positive out of the more than 3,900 in custody on Rikers Island and at smaller facilities around the city.

Getty Images for Roc Nation

As for two the government-run federal lockups in Manhattan and Brooklyn — which have a combined total of more than 2,400 beds — the US Bureau of Prisons reported on Tuesday 11 confirmed cases among inmates.

In its report, GEO Group told Mauskopf that staff and inmates at the Queens lockup are provided with up to three masks a week, that detainees have been practicing social distancing and that higher-risk individuals are being taken out of general population and placed in solitary confinement.

But attorneys with clients in the facility have said that the open-dorm style arrangement — in which inmates are housed in seven large rooms containing 20 to 46 beds — is making it impossible for inmates to appropriately separate themselves from each other.

Raihan’s attorney, Leticia Olivera of the Federal Defenders of New York, told a judge at a hearing on Tuesday that the notion that inmates can social distance from one another is “completely false,” noting that they have to share phones and bathrooms.

“When the coronavirus enters one dorm it is only going to spread to other inmates,” she said.

In a statement to The Post, a GEO Group rep said the company is taking “comprehensive steps” to address the risk of coronavirus at its prisons, and referred to an earlier statement saying there is no overcrowding at its facilities and that inmates and staff have abundant access to clean water and soap for handwashing.

“We take our responsibility to ensure the health and safety of all those in our care and our employees with the utmost seriousness, and we will continue to work with the federal government and local health officials to implement best practices for the prevention, assessment and management of COVID-19, consistent with the latest guidance issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” the spokesperson said.