A federal monitor overseeing Rikers Island blasted the town’s jail boss for muzzling his underlings from talking with court-appointed watchdogs at the troubled jail — even after he was warned of “dysfunctional” administration practices.
Division of Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards has been working to “undermine” efforts to scrub up the notoriously mismanaged lockup — most lately by demanding that his workers transient him earlier than talking with investigators, monitor Steve Martin stated in a scathing letter.
In a Sept.1 directive, Richards additionally ordered his workers to doc “all conferences” with Martin or Nicholas Deml, the court-appointed remediation supervisor operating the jail, Martin wrote in a letter to Manhattan federal court docket choose Laura Swain dated Thursday.
An “nameless supply” promptly leaked Richards’ orders, which had been despatched out by his chief of workers America Canas, to the oversight crew, Martin stated.
The strikes by Richards and his management are “among the many most particular, direct, and consequential actions” taken to “undermine” the court-appointed monitor that Martin has noticed in his greater than a decade watching over Rikers, the monitor alleged.
DOC management, “on the highest ranges, is actively partaking in efforts to evade transparency and impede cooperation and collaboration,” Martin fumed within the letter.
Richards’ demand for staffers to report back to him earlier than talking with the monitor or remediation supervisor got here after he’d been warned in a number of latest conferences about his “dysfunctional, haphazard, and problematic administration methods,” the monitor wrote.
Rikers has been topic to a federal monitor since 2015 on account of a settlement of a federal lawsuit alleging horrible circumstances and rampant violence on the metropolis jail.
The choose has repeatedly discovered that the town didn’t adjust to court docket orders, and in 2024 discovered the administration of former Mayor Eric Adams in contempt of court docket. The contempt discovering led to Deml, the previous head of Vermont’s jail system, being appointed in January to take management of the lockup.
Martin singled out two members of DOC brass that he stated have been faithfully complying with the court docket order, not like their colleagues: Senior Deputy Commissioner for Investigations, Intelligence and Accountability Sarena Townsend, and one other prime administrator, Jean-Claude LeBec.
Richards was appointed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani to run the DOC in January shortly after Mamdani changed former Mayor Adams. Richards had served as president of the nonprofit Fortune Society, which supplies housing and different providers for individuals getting back from lockup.
The jails honcho, who reportedly served jail time within the late Nineteen Eighties for theft earlier than making a profession in felony justice reform, made historical past as the primary previously incarcerated particular person to get the place.
Mamdani stated Friday that his administration is working to “tackle” the issues raised by the monitor’s letter — and that he nonetheless has “full confidence” in Richards.
“I’d say at the beginning, I’ve full confidence in Commissioner Richards and his dedication to this work,” he instructed reporters at an unrelated presser.
“I truly was simply with him proper earlier than this as we had been collectively on Rikers Island to commemorate the service and the sacrifice of DOC members on 9/11, near 25 years in the past,” Hizzoner added.
He stated the administration is “addressing these issues” within the letter and “dedicated to working carefully and collaboratively” with the monitor and remediation supervisor.
“And one of many issues that meaning is holding traces of communication open, sharing data transparently and taking the steps essential to ship reforms,” the mayor stated.
