Thursday, January 22, 2009

Rikers guards forced teen inmates to fight.

(NY Daily News) Three correction officers created a sadistic secret society on a Rikers Island cell block, ordering prisoners to shake down and beat other inmates, prosecutors charged Thursday. Officers Michael McKie, Khalid Nelson and Denise Albright called their scheme "The Program," and the teenagers they recruited as enforcers were "The Team," officials said.

Team members were allowed to extort commissary money, clothing and even phone privileges from other inmates on the adolescent cell block. Those who didn't cooperate were beaten - and McKie and Nelson set the time, location and type of punishment to be inflicted, prosecutors said. "They didn't turn a blind eye to violence. They authorized and directed it," Assistant District Attorney James Goward said at the trio's arraignment.

"They turned jail into what might be called almost a nightmare environment where inmates were subjected to beatings, where inmates were recruited to commit beatings." The appalling abuse came to light in a Department of Investigation probe into the Oct. 18 death of inmate Christopher Robinson - who had refused to get with "The Program."

The officers aren't accused of ordering Robinson's beating. Instead, McKie and Nelson were hit charges of enterprise corruption, which carries up to 25 years in prison. Albright, a lesser player, was charged with conspiracy and assault. All three pleaded not guilty in Bronx Supreme Court as Robinson's mother watched. McKie and Albright's lawyer called the 58-count indictment a "web of lies" concocted by criminals. "My client would have no motivation whatsoever to engage in this behavior," defense lawyer Joey Jackson said. Nelson's lawyer, Renee Hill, said the officer "vehemently denies these charges."

McKie and Nelson were ordered held on $200,000 bail, while the judge set Albright's bail at $50,000. A dozen inmates were also charged, including three accused of manslaughter in Robinson's death: Anquant Bryant, 18, of the Bronx; Joseph Hutchinson, 18, of Manhattan, and Shaddon Beswick, 18, of the Bronx. Correction Commissioner Martin Horn said the allegations "broke my heart."

"If the behavior alleged today is proven, these officers have stained...the good name of the 9,000 plus men and women who work in our jails every day." Horn said the suspects weren't caught sooner because they went to great lengths to conceal "The Program," including lying in official reports and developing signals to alert each other and inmates when supervisors were around.

"Allowing this to happen gave them less to do," Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson said. "It made their job easier." The brutality was so codified that the cellblock was broken up into two groups - north and south - that fought among themselves, prosecutors said. The inmates on the south side were inflicting severe injuries on each other - so Nelson brought them to the north side to show how the beatings should be delivered. "While the victim was defenseless, he was punched in the legs and abdomen repeatedly," Goward said of the demonstration. Outside the courtroom, Robinson's mother, Charnel, cried as she applauded the arrest of the officers.

"I feel like I'm one step closer to getting justice today," she said, flanked by her lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein, who has sued the city. Her son was in Rikers on a parole violation that she said was a mistake. "I have to live the rest of my life without ever getting to hug him again," she said. (source)