Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York. (Photo: Peter Foley/Bloomberg)

A federal judge said Monday that he would open Metropolitan Correctional Center to inspection by a medical expert, after inmates sued the Manhattan jail over its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The planned inspection, which could take place as early as this week, would mirror a similar court-ordered examination of Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center April 23 that found widespread failures by federal prison officials in testing for the coronavirus and screening inmates for symptoms of COVID-19.

Inmates at MCC last week accused the jail and its warden, Marti Licon-Vitale, in a federal lawsuit of "ineptitude and indifference" in responding to a burgeoning crisis within its walls.

The proposed class action, filed by attorneys from Covington & Burling, said the coronavirus was spreading "unmonitored and undetected" throughout MCC, due in large part to overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. According to the filing, people exhibiting known symptoms of COVID-19 had not been removed larger clusters of inmates, and testing and tracing of cases at the facility were nearly nonexistent.

While officials have previously acknowledged a shortage of tests at MCC, representatives from the federal Bureau of Prisons said aggressive measures were in place and the spread of the virus had largely been contained.

District Judge Edgardo Ramos of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York noted during a nearly two-hour hearing on Monday that he was receiving "two very, very different" assessments of the conditions inside MCC and said that discovery in the case must include a full inspection by a qualified medical expert. Details of the inspection were expected to be hashed out in court filings later this week.

As of April 30, only eight inmates at MCC had been tested for COVID-19 at the lower Manhattan facility, which houses about 700 people. According to court-mandated reporting, five of those inmates had contracted the virus.

A lawyer from the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office, which is representing the MCC and its warden, said Monday that the jail's suppliers were only selling tests in batches of 10 at a time due to increased demand.

The lawyer, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jean-David Barnea, said the facility currently had 17 tests that were available to be administered, but tests were only being given to inmates whose symptoms were severe enough to warrant medical isolation or hospitalization.

"Aside from potential asymptomatic carriers," he said, "there is no one to test."

Barnea said that units at MCC had been "sub-divided" into "cohorts" of no more than 10 inmates in an effort to limit contact and slow the spread of the virus. Each cohort, he said, had a designated orderly to clean "high-touch surfaces," and a deep-cleaning of shared spaces was conducted at the end of the day.

Inmates, Barnea added, were supposed to be provided with two cloth masks and could obtain an extra bar of soap and roll of toilet paper each week, free of charge.

Covington & Burling partner Arlo Devlin-Brown, however, strongly refuted what he called MCC's "rosy descriptions" of the BOP's response, citing reports from "inmate after inmate" who said they did not have access to the supplies they need. He also noted that the MCC's own numbers indicated that about 20% of prison staff had contracted COVID-19, leading to the unavoidable conclusion that the virus was "in the facility where they work."

Ramos, meanwhile, said that, while "there's such a divide in the information that's being provided" by both sides, "it certainly does seem to me that there is a higher incidence [of infection] at MCC than the BOP is aware of."

Ramos did, however, deny the petitioners' request for a temporary restraining order directing MCC to take "immediate action" imposing measures to halt the spread of the virus.

The judge directed the parties to submit letters by Wednesday detailing their proposed discovery plans, including possible protocols governing the planned inspection of MCC. According to court filings, the tour would likely be led by Homer Venters, a doctor specializing in the provision of medical care in jails and prisons who carried out last month's inspection across the river at MDC.

The examination, Ramos said, could happen as early as Friday or over the weekend.

Attorneys for the BOP also said Monday that the agency was prioritizing at-risk inmates for release to home confinement during the pandemic and that the agency would work more quickly to determine which met certain criteria based on their status at the facility.

Alan Vinegrad, another Covington attorney representing the inmates, said he welcomed the BOP's increased sense of urgency, but faulted officials for how little progress they had made to date.

"The numbers, I think, are frankly just shocking in terms of how little MCC has done," he said.

A hearing on the inmates' request for a preliminary injunction in the case was scheduled for June 2 at 10 am.

 

Read More:

Manhattan Federal Inmates Accuse Jailers of 'Ineptitude and Indifference' in Dealing With Pandemic

Medical Inspection of Brooklyn's MDC Showed Lack of Infection Control, Symptom Tracking, Doctor Reports

Once Again, No New Coronavirus Tests at New York City's Federal Facilities