A New York federal judge on Monday ordered the immediate release of a former New York City police officer from a federal prison in North Carolina, in a decision that decried the "Kafkaesque" approach officials had taken to quarantining inmates under their care.

The strongly worded ruling, from U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan of the Southern District of New York, said courts had power to ability to grant compassionate release amid the COVID-19 pandemic, even if a prisoner had not exhausted administrative remedies within the federal Bureau of Prisons, a hurdle that has doomed similar applications by inmates fearing for their health.

The 21-page opinion likewise lambasted the BOP over its "illogical and self-defeating" policy of quarantining prisoners for 14 days before their release, which in practice was "neither a quarantine nor limited to 14 days."

Instead, Nathan noted, people at FCI Butner, like other federal facilities across the country, were kept in close quarters with other inmates and prison staff, and no testing was administered prior to placement in a quarantine unit. If anyone were to test positive for the coronavirus, she said, the 14-day clock then starts anew.

"The court speaks in stark terms: this is an illogical and self-defeating policy that appears to be inconsistent with the directive of the attorney general, ungrounded in science, and a danger to both Mr. Scparta and the public health of the community," the opinion said.

Nathan's ruling came in the case of Gerard Scparta, a former NYPD officer who pleaded guilty last April to illegally collecting more than $630,000 in social security benefits and tax evasion. He is now serving an 18-month prison sentence at Butner, where to date at least 65 inmates and 25 staff members have tested positive for COVID-19, and five inmates have died, according to BOP statistics.

Nathan, however, noted that testing at BOP facilities has been "severely limited," and the true number of cases was "likely far higher" than the numbers officially reported.

Scparta, 55, who suffers from high blood pressure, sleep apnea and hypertension, filed an emergency motion for compassionate release April 8, arguing that his underlying health conditions exposed him to potentially deadly complications from COVID-19, should he contract the disease.

Though prosecutors initially opposed the request on exhaustion grounds, the BOP later deemed Scparta eligible to serve out the remainder of his sentence from his home in Orange County, New Jersey, following a mandatory two-week quarantine at the prison.

But Nathan said conditions at the prison trapped Scparta in a "bizarre limbo" of the BOP's quarantine policy, which "achieves the backward result of prolonging incarceration and increasing community spread." The "senselessness" of the approach, she said, was highlighted by the "undisputed scientific facts" that asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 could still spread the disease and that those infected could spread the virus before they even appeared to be ill.

Applications for compassionate release amid the pandemic have sometimes been stymied by a provision of the First Step Act, which requires federal judges to consider the motions after defendants have exhausted their rights to petition that that the BOP move for release on an inmate's behalf or until 30 have past since a warden received the request.

Judges in the Southern District have split over the question of whether the exhaustion requirement can be waived, but Nathan ruled that there were equitable exceptions to the statute when inmates faced a particularly high risk to their health.

"For Mr. Scparta to wait an additional two weeks (until 30 days lapse under the First Step Act's exhaustion requirement) could be the difference between life and death—and if he falls seriously ill or dies, he would have suffered irreparable harm and his motion seeking release would be futile," she wrote.

Scparta's attorney, Joseph Mure Jr., said he was "pleased" with Judge Nathan's ruling and hoped the case would lead to other inmates being released.

"It's easy to forget and lose sight of prisoners' rights during a pandemic," Mure said in a statement. "FCI Butner is largely infected with COVID-19 and the methods they are using to try to quarantine individuals are unsafe, dangerous and perilous. People are getting sick every day, and unless something is done they are endangering people's lives."

A spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment on the ruling.

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