NYC federal jail where Jeffrey Epstein killed himself to close
NEW YORK — The dysfunctional federal jail where Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself in 2019 will be closed “at least temporarily,” the Justice Department said Thursday.
The Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan could be shut down as soon as the coming month, sources say.
“In an effort to address the issues at MCC NY as quickly and efficiently as possible, the Department has decided to close the MCC, at least temporarily, until those issues have been resolved. Planning for the deactivation is under way, and we will have more updates as that process continues,” a DOJ spokeswoman said in a statement.
Sources were skeptical the jail would ever resume operations resembling previous years, when the jail held 700 or more inmates.
The jail currently holds only 263 inmates, according to Bureau of Prisons data.
“The place is just f-ing falling apart,” one jails insider said. “Literally, for years now, there’s water leakages — saturation of the concrete infrastructure of some of those those floors going on for years. That’s a big reason for having to do this, the deterioration of the structure.”
The shutdown presents major logistical challenges for Manhattan Federal Court, which is connected to the jail. District Executive Ed Friedland, who is in charge of the court’s operations, said he had not been notified of the plan.
One source said more than 100 inmates have been moved from MCC to Brooklyn’s federal jail, the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, in the last year.
“The bulk of the people will go to the MDC and the marshals are looking for other places to put people,” one source said, adding that MCC is the only local federal jail with a methadone clinic for heroine-addicted inmates.
One source said some staffers had received “reduction in force” letters notifying them they’d lost their jobs.
But Tyrone Covington, the union rep for correctional officers at MCC, said none of the rank and file had received such notices. He knew of no plans to close the jail entirely.
“There is a major drawdown in inmate population,” Covington said, adding that he is happy repairs are underway.
The news comes less than a month after Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco visited the jail “to get a first-hand look at its operations and infrastructure given ongoing concerns.”
“She plans to have further meetings about the facility after her return to Washington,” the Justice Department said in an Aug. 4 release.
The lockup has been plagued by headline-grabbing dysfunction since Epstein hanged himself in his cell while awaiting trial for sex trafficking of minors. Two correctional officers on duty that night admitted to neglecting their duties the night of the sex offender’s death as part of a non-prosecution agreement.
The jail also went into a week-long lockdown after someone snuck a gun into the building in February 2020. No one has been charged for the security breach. Alarming accounts emerged from the jail in 2020 about coronavirus ravaging inmate housing areas.
One officer in the building was sentenced to three years in prison last year for preying on at least seven female inmates at the jail starting in 2012.
Yet another was arrested after catching a visitor trying to sneak contraband into the jail — and demanded sex from her instead of “getting her in trouble.”
Inmates have described the jail as a fetid, bug and mice-infested hellhole where feces leaks out of busted pipes into cells that get no heat.
