A video secretly filmed by an inmate at the troubled Metropolitan Correctional Center reveals cramped sleeping quarters and poor hygiene that critics say has turned the jail into a coronavirus petri dish.
The footage, recorded with a contraband cell phone at the federal lockup in lower Manhattan, depicts a housing unit at the jail a year prior to the pandemic. Numerous sources said the mold, rodents and dirty quarters in the footage resemble current conditions.
A former inmate provided the video to the Daily News in the hope it would spark reform.
The video provides a rare look inside the 750-inmate jail that became nationally known after Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself in one of its cells while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.
“Harsh conditions here at the MCC,” the narrator says at the start of the tour.
The inmate says that 26 inmates sleep on bunk beds in a dark, crowded space. Mice, rats and water bugs live in a rusty heater that doesn’t work. A trail of rodent droppings shows the critters are trying to raid inmates’ lockers.
Mold grows in the bathroom ceiling. The inmates share one shower, a toilet and a urinal. Water never stops running from the shower or sink.
A toilet plunger has no stick, meaning inmates have to put extra elbow grease into clearing a clog.
“It’s disgusting,” the narrator says.
The footage is a serious security breach, said Tyrone Covington, a correctional officer and union president at the jail. But he said the inmates’ complaints about conditions in the lockup line up with gripes by its staff.
“As a union we have some of the same complaints the inmate population may have — the ones he’s expressing in that video,” Covington said.
The jail’s troubles include an FBI investigation into a loaded gun found in an inmate housing area earlier this year. A Justice Department watchdog criticized the Metropolitan Correctional Center in March for failing to properly monitor terrorist inmates.
The tight quarters at the 12-story jail make social distancing impossible. Five inmates and 33 staff tested positive for coronavirus, the jail reported Thursday. One of those sickened is the jail’s warden, said a source.
Lawyers, staff and inmate advocates fear the reported numbers understate the extent of COVID-19 in the jail.
“As much time as I’ve spent in that place, it still shocks me to see it. The cramped and unsanitary living conditions are unacceptable at any time, but now with COVID-19, it’s truly horrifying,” said David Patton, executive director of Federal Defenders of New York.
“Social distancing is an imaginary concept at the MCC. People are literally piled on top of one another,” Patton said. “And yet federal prosecutors keep going into court telling judges that all is well — nothing to worry about. It’s a disgrace.”
Cameron Lindsay, a corrections consultant and former warden of the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, said the video was cause for concern as the pandemic rages.
“Correctional facilities are the antithesis of social distancing,” he said. “I think it’s safe to predict a dire future under these conditions.”
Bruce Barket, a defense attorney and outspoken critic of how the Metropolitan Correctional Center is run, said conditions there are worse than what’s shown in the video.
The jail has been on lockdown for three months, and inmates are not allowed to visit with family or their lawyers. Inmates have recently complained about being confined to cells for most of the day with no hot meals or clean clothes.
“Setting aside the virus, the conditions are terrible,” Barket said.
“Just imagine living in that circumstance. The conditions in this place are horrific. It’s a horrible institution.”