By John Annese
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — Conditions at Brooklyn’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Center federal jail are so horrific that a Long Island judge ruled he would vacate an elderly tax scammer’s sentence and give him house arrest instead if he’s sent there.
Long Island Federal Court Judge Gary Brown sentenced 74-year-old Daniel Colucci to nine months behind bars on Monday, but wrote a trap door into his decision so he wouldn’t be subjected to the “dangerous, barbaric conditions” at the Brooklyn jail.
If for some reason the federal Bureau of Prisons sends Colucci to the MDC — which typically houses suspects awaiting trial and sentenced defendants awaiting their transfer to a prison facility — that sentence will be vacated, Brown ruled on Monday.
Brown’s decision includes a litany of incidents at Sunset Park jail, including a recent, caught-on-video stabbing that underscores the severe understaffing there.
Video of that April 27 stabbing shows a lone correction officer arriving on the scene 37 seconds into the three-on-one assault, then shows the victim stagger away unassisted as the correction officer chases the attackers.
In June and July, two MDC inmates were stabbed to death less than six weeks apart,
“Allegations of inadequate supervision, unbridled assaults and lack of sufficient medical care are supported by an increasing body of evidence, with certain instances that are irrefutable, Brown wrote. “Each of the five months preceding this opinion was marred by instances of catastrophic violence at MDC, including two apparent homicides, two gruesome stabbings and an assault so severe that it resulted in a fractured eye socket for the victim.”
Colucci was convicted of a nearly $1 million series of tax frauds, including schemes where he “misappropriated sums withheld from his employees’ paychecks that were intended for tax payments and intentionally failed to make employer matching contributions,” Brown wrote.
Those crimes merit incarceration, the judge wrote, but he doesn’t want to take the chance that Colucci, who has a host of medical problems and a recent cancer diagnosis, be sent to the MDC.
Though the jail mainly houses suspects awaiting prosecution, about 40 of its nearly 1,300 inmates are not there pretrial, BOP officials said.
White collar defendants with sentences shorter than a year can wind up serving their time at the MDC, defense attorneys told the Daily News.
“Given the age and medical condition of this defendant, such an outcome would offer unacceptable risks,” Brown wrote.
He called his ruling “undoubtedly unusual,” but added, “the present conditions at MDC make such a sentence materially different than one served at a jail or prison elsewhere in the United States that is appropriately managed.”
Brown is one of a growing list of federal judges in New York’s Eastern and Southern Districts to decry the conditions at MDC. In a blistering January ruling, Manhattan Federal Court Judge Jesse Furman refused to send a 70-year-old convicted drug dealer there post-sentencing, writing, “There is no way the grim conditions at the jail will materially improve until the grave staffing shortages are addressed. And that is not going to happen unless the political branches commit considerably more resources to the matter, which seems unlikely to happen any time soon.”
A spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Prisons declined comment on Brown’s decision, and wouldn’t divulge the agency’s plans for Colucci.
Colucci’s lawyer, Richard Kestenbaum, called Brown’s ruling unusual, particularly because the judge included photos from inside the jail in his opinion.
“I never saw pictures in a sentencing order. He felt pretty strongly about how awful it is,” he said.
Colucci remains free under supervision as he awaits his prison designation. Kestenbaum, who was seeking no jail time for his client, said the ruling presents him with a conundrum.
“It leaves me in an awkward spot now. Am I supposed to call BOP and try to argue for assigning him to MDC, then it gets vacated? I’m not so sure the judge would be too happy with me doing that,” the defense lawyer said.
Still, he added, “As awkward as this whole thing is, the posture is very awkward, he was sensitive to sending somebody there. So you’ve got to give him credit for that.”
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