Parolees Denied Hearings Trapped On Rikers Amid Coronavirus: Suit

NEW YORK CITY — Masked correction officers keep pulling men out of Michael Bergamaschi's prison unit and they refuse to tell him why, his attorneys say.

The 40-year-old detainee has been trapped for weeks inside Rikers Island — as novel coronavirus spreads across the jail facility — because he allegedly violated parole fleeing a drug-riddled homeless shelter to return to the home of his wife and 9-year-old son, lawyers claim.

Now Legal Aid Society and the New York Civil Liberties Union are suing Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state on the behalf of Bergamaschi and more than 1,000 people held in New York City jails waiting for their indefinitely-postponed days in court.

"The injustice of the mandatory jailing of people accused of parole violations is compounded by the near collapse of the parole revocation system," reads the suit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court Friday.

"The overwhelming majority of hearings have been suspended, with scant information available about when they will be reinstated, leaving people confined in limbo in New York City jails—currently the most dangerous place in the world for contracting COVID-19."

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The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision declined to comment on pending litigation but issued a comment on the COVID-19 pandemic.

"DOCCS has and continues to alter longstanding policies, as well as create new policies, to protect the health and wellbeing of staff, incarcerated individuals and parolees while continuing to ensure the safety of the general public," a spokesperson said.

"The Department cannot, and will not, ignore its responsibility to maintain public safety."

Cuomo's press office did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

Bergamaschi's attorneys argue that the New York State Board of Parole is violating the accused parole violators or their right to a speedy probable cause hearing, and in doing so, putting their lives in peril.

Rikers's chief physician Ross MacDonald has called Rikers Island's handling of COVID-19 a “public health disaster.”

There were 239 COVID-19 cases confirmed among about 4,350 Rikers Island detainees and 273 staff members have tested positive as of April 3, according to the Department of Corrections.

The infection rate on Rikers Island is 5.41 percent, or roughly eight times the infection rate in New York City, dubbed the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Legal Aid Society data.

Legal Aid Society's tracker of COVID-19 cases in New York City jails:

(These numbers reflect data available on April 3 and case numbers have since been updated on the city, state and national level)

The suit asks the court to order hearings resumed.

The Correction Officers' Benevolent Association New York City has also sued over conditions on Rikers Island and a judge ruled Saturday the city must provide corrections officers with protective gear and increase sanitation measures, the New York Times reports.

Hundreds of high-risk detainees charged with minor offenses have already been released, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio.

And Cuomo committed last week to releasing more than 1,o00 parole violators detained across the state for "non-serious reasons."

Grandfather Frederick Roberson, 58, has been at Rikers Island since March 12 for some violations changing his address and abandoning his drug treatment program, but attorneys say it's because he was rushed to Elmhurst Hospital with an inflamed pancreas.

Roberson, who suffers from spinal injuries and hypertension, now walks around Rikers with a towel wrapped around his face, according to the suit, and uses a spare sock to cover the phone when he calls his wife, a 61-year-old special education teacher, and granddaughter.

According to the suit, "He is scared he may never see them again."

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This article originally appeared on the New York City Patch