By John Annese
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — An inmate at Brooklyn’s troubled federal jail was stabbed to death in a fight, the Daily News has learned.
Uriel Whyte , 37, who was locked up at the Metropolitan Detention Center for more than two years awaiting trial on a federal gun case, died in the Sunset Park jail June 7 , federal prison authorities confirmed.
Though the details surrounding his killing were sparse, a source familiar with the case said he was stabbed to death in a fight with another inmate over drugs. Another source said it’s believed Whyte was fatally stabbed in the neck on the eighth floor of the jail.
So far, no one has been formally charged in Whyte’s slaying. An internal communication to MDC’s inmate population announced that a “thorough investigation” would be conducted and that the jail population will “remain secured until further notice.”
Whyte’s killing comes amid years of complaints by federal judges and defense lawyers about hellish conditions and severe understaffing at Brooklyn’s notorious jail. Earlier this year, a federal judge in Manhattan refused to send a 70-year-old drug dealer there prior to his sentencing because conditions are so consistently “dreadful.”
“An observation I will make is that MCC was shut down when Jeffrey Epstein died,” said Whyte’s lawyer, referring to the Metropolitan Correction Center in Manhattan , which was shuttered in 2021, after the sex fiend financier killed himself in 2019.
“He was a rich, white man who killed himself. When my poor, Black, anonymous client gets killed, nothing will happen. That is my view,” added the attorney, Gary Kaufman .
The lawyer said he was contacted by legal staff at the jail on June 7 and informed that Wythe had “passed away,” only learning he was a homicide victim when he pressed with followup questions.
In a press release dated the day of Whyte’s death and sent to the Daily News upon request Thursday, the federal Bureau of Prisons announced that “Uriel Whyte became unresponsive following a perceived altercation at the Metropolitan Detention Center” and that he “was subsequently pronounced deceased by EMS personnel.”
Wythe was indicted in Long Island Federal Court in July 2021 on federal charges he possessed a firearm despite being a convicted felon following a January 2020 shooting incident and another episode that April in which the feds say he pointed a gun at a woman and her child in Hempstead , L.I.
“I don’t care what somebody has been accused of doing. If the government has possession over your body, I believe they have an obligation to keep you safe, and they failed him. There’s no excuse for this,” Kaufman said.
“Even as a defense lawyer, when you deal with people in jail, it is shocking to hear that your client was murdered in prison.”
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