The filthy, cramped, and corrupt federal lockup in Manhattan where Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself was deemed such a mess that the Department of Justice announced its closure in August — and cleared it of prisoners in late October. The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York was able to openly declare an indictment on Nov. 4. IndictmentThe scandal revealed a final capstone at the cursed Metropolitan Correctional Center. Close examination of these documents and a review the prior convictions of those involved reveals a plot linking corrections staff. The following are some of New York’s most violent gangs, including the “Blood Hound Brims”Crips is also an offshoot.
Three jail officers were charged for having participated in a scheme to smuggle contraband into the high-rise lockup for the benefit of eight inmates — with eleven aliases among them — who represent at least six different gangs. Anthony, a member the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods, was one of the inmates. “Harv”Ellison is currently serving a sentence of 24 years for offences including the kidnapping & robbery Tekashi69.
According to the 22-page indictment the criminal scheme involved jail staff accepting bribes for smuggling a wide range of drugs, booze, and cell phones into a notorious 12-story detention facility. MCC was established in 1975 by the federal Bureau of Prisons and has been used primarily to house inmates who are awaiting trial or sentencing. In recent years it has been the scene for severe abuse. Overcrowding, squalor scandal.
It also held world-notorious inmates, including Epstein, who was able to end his life due to the inattention of MCC guards that were dozing and scrolling the Internet rather than attending to the sex-criminal financier; and the Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who railed against the jail’s unsanitary conditions and likened his detention at MCC to “physical, emotional and mental torture.”
According to indictment, the smuggling plan began in October 2019 but continued into January. Three employees at the jail allegedly helped smuggle in oxycodone, Xanax, K2 — a smokable synthetic cannabinoid, alcohol, cigarettes cell phones and accessories. The contraband was allegedly handed off to eight inmates at the jail, with aliases that read like they’re straight out of a script of The Wire — including “Kingo,” “Rell,” “Brando,” “Don P,” “Chino,” and “Junior.”
These men’s gang affiliations are not included in the indictment. However, the feds previously linked them with some of the most fearsome crews in New York City. These include:
- The “Blood Hound Brims,”Which the feds Please describeAs “one of the most violent and fastest-growing factions of the Bloods street and prison gang.”
- The “Davidson Avenue DTO”Affiliated, the feds. Say itWith “the nationwide Crips street gang.”
- The “Boss Crew,”Which the feds Please describeAs “a Brooklyn drug trafficking organization.”
- The “Stevenson Commons Crew,”Bronx-based “racketeering enterprise,” PerThe feds.
- Then there’s the “Hot Boys,”Which the feds Please describeAs “a robbery crew”The company is based in Upper Manhattan.
The most-high-profile inmate in the indictment is Harv Ellison, a member of the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods — the gang that rapper Tekashi69 ran with to cultivate street cred, often featuring gang members in his videos. Ellison had been a trusted friend and bodyguard to the rapper but he reportedly started to see Tekashi69, whose real identity is Daniel Hernandez as a wannabe and not a committed gangster.
Ellison ultimately kidnapped the rapper in 2018 and threatened to kill him before agreeing to take the rapper’s jewelry instead. The following is a detailed account by the New York Daily NewsThe huge haul also included: “a red presidential Rolex, a Cuban Links bracelet, four diamond rings, a spinning 69 diamond chain, a chain of the Jigsaw character from the movie Saw and a $95,000 My Little Pony necklace with his own rainbow-colored hair.” The rapper reportedly escaped the encounter by jumping from Ellison’s SUV and into a stranger’s car.
(The rapper was a co-defendant with the prosecutors, became a prominent witness against his former gang mates and received a two-year sentence for his own criminal firearms offenses and racketeering. The judge was impressed with his testimony against the gang. “extraordinary” “extremely useful.”)
The new indictment charges that one of the MCC employees, a unit secretary named Sharon Griffith-McKnight, participated in the smuggling of contraband to Ellison — who was awaiting sentencing in the facility. She then deepened her alleged criminal involvement by writing a letter to the judge in Ellison’s case calling for leniency for a man she termed a “model inmate.”
The judge accepted the letter as is: “Unless this is some sort of Grisham novel, and people are all corrupt and making all of this up about [Ellison],”He remarked, “it seems to me that it’s unavoidable that [Ellison’s] trajectory at the MCC contains a lot of good.”
Griffith-McKnight is indicted “did corruptly obstruct, influence, and impede an official proceeding”She lied to the judge and insists that “Griffith-McNight knew at the time that Ellison was not, in fact, a ‘model inmate.’”
The indictment also includes smuggling allegations and charges another MCC employee of having “intimidated and threatened, and caused others to intimidate and threaten”A prisoner inside the facility, trying to prevent the inmate from revealing the contraband plan to the feds.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams made a comment about the smuggling scheme the MCC employees were involved in “undermined the institution they swore to serve by conspiring with the very inmates they are charged to protect”And that’s not all. “obstructing the pursuit of justice.”
Michael J. Driscoll claimed that MCC employees were being abused by the FBI assistant director in-charge. “acted like nothing more than the criminals in their charge and assisted incarcerated offenders in committing more crimes.”
The new indictment represents an ignominious — and perhaps final — chapter in the ugly saga of the MCC. The Department of Justice made its announcement in August “to close the MCC, at least temporarily”Send an email “issues”It suggested that the facility should be kept from being “safe and secure.” A dozen members of New York’s congressional delegation wrote a letter to “applaud”The closure.
The inmate population is now officially zero — and the Department has given no indication of when, or whether, MCC will be rehabilitated or returned to service.
You can find the complete Nov. 4, indictment below.