Results tagged “departmentofcorrections”

Plaxico Burress is getting ready to for his two-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to gun charges by hiring a consultant to help him maximize his time while under medium-security supervision. His lawyer Benjamin Brafman yesterday told the Post, "We are consulting with an expert in the field who will address and advise us, Mr. Burress and his family, on what to expect while incarcerated, and how to use his period of confinement as productively as possible." Michael Vick recently said he was in "the best shape of my life" after being released from two years behind bars and signing with the Eagles. A Corrections spokeswoman said, "Due to his notoriety, there is a potential that he would be placed in protective custody. And those guys are held in single cells, with the exception of a shower, a visit, a medical visit. You're only out of your cell for eight hours a day." Corrections officials will likely be reminding their guards (and chaplains) to avoid any "Foxy Brown-style" celebrity treatment for Plax. Yesterday on his radio show, Mayor Bloomberg said he was satisfied to hear that the football star will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Apparently Orthodox Jews weren't the only ones getting preferential treatment while inside the city's prison walls. It appears that the Department of Corrections might have a systematic breakdown going on according to reports in today's Post about the way that various prison officials pampered rap star Foxy Brown while she was doing time at Riker's Island until her release last April.

Actually, the Tombs—aka the Manhattan Detention Complex— doesn't really allow bar (or bat) mitzvahs to be thrown there, which is why Corrections Department officials, including a rabbi and imam, were disciplined for allowing one inmate to throw his son's bash there. The Post reports that Tuvia Stern, a "financial scam artist," got the okay to "use his own caterer, who supplied kosher food, china, forks -- and knives -- for about 60 guests who partied and danced the hora for six hours in the jailhouse gym. Stern's family and friends were allowed to keep their cellphones -- normally a huge security no-no. And Stern was given the OK to dress in clothing appropriate for the occasion." Corrections Commissioner Martin Horn was reportedly "livid"—guess finding out that the department paid for the overtime of guards who were staffed at the event wasn't fun.

The Department of Corrections spoke with us today to clarify that "there is no timetable" for the reopening and expansion of the "House of D" in Downtown Brooklyn reported on yesterday. The original assertion that it would reopen shortly came from a Daily News claim that a letter to the state from the DOC stated the jail would reopen in a few months.

Even though the area once home to the House of D is now better known as the House of TJ's, City Councilman David Yassky and Controller William Thompson are still trying to block the city from the reopening and expansion of a jail in Downtown Brooklyn that has been closed since 2003. The two filed a lawsuit against the city trying to stop $430 million deal planned by the Bloomberg administration to add 720 beds to the the Brooklyn House of Detention in a move they say is a "waste of taxpayer money and would have a destructive effect on the local economy.". The suit claims that the city "secretively and illegally" re-populated the jail when it sent 31 prisoners there over the weekend in order to claim that it never closed. The Dept. of Corrections says it would like to have the jail reopened by early next year.