Results tagged “rikers”

Former Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress headed for Rikers Island earlier today after being sentenced to a two-year term for second-degree "attempted weapons possession." He had pleaded guilty to the charge after shooting himself in the thigh with his own illegal pistol in a Manhattan nightclub in November 2008. From Rikers Island he will be transferred to one of NY's many beautiful upstate prisons, just in time for foliage season and intramural convict football. ESPN.com noted that he was expected to serve about twenty months, followed by two years of probation, if his behavior is good.

A man who was wrongly jailed on Rikers Island for 17 months has accepted a $145,000 settlement with the city because a detective misidentified his fingerprints. Dwight Gomas was residing in Atlanta in 2004 when he was suddenly arrested by U.S. marshals for an armed robbery at a Howard Beach jewelry store. Detective Eileen Barrett had matched a partial finger print from the crime scene to Gomas, whose prints were on file after his only prior arrest as an adult: driving with a suspended license in Brooklyn. Gomas maintained his innocence before a grand jury, but was indicted and couldn't make bail. Languishing on Rikers, his Legal Aid lawyer urged him to accept a plea offer of five years in prison, but he refused. Luckily, veteran detective Daniel Perruzzaa finally conducted a routine review of the fingerprints. He tells the Daily News, "When I looked at it, I said, 'You know what? This is a screwup; this is not his fingerprints." Oopsy! Gomas was released after 523 days in jail, but by then his girlfriend and their child moved in with another man. On the plus side, he pulled in $145K in less than two years on Rikers, so we're sure there's no hard feelings.

Kyle Shaw, the 17-year-old who was apparently so inspired by Fight Club that he allegedly bombed a Starbucks in May, appeared at his bail hearing today—with a bruise near his left eye! The Post reports, "Shaw got the shiner while at Rikers Island this week after another inmate punched him," and the Daily News explains, "Before he socked him, the jailbird asked if [Shaw] was part of the lockup's own fight club - brawls organized by correction officers under the rubric 'The Program,' a source said." We wonder if Shaw's affection for the film (and book) is fading. Prosecutor Chris Ryan asked that Shaw remained in custody, because he was taped saying he wanted to plant another bomb before he headed off to Outward Bound this summer—"I'm going to ... camp. I think I need to do one more before I go." However, the judge allowed Shaw to head home for the weekend before he makes a decision on Monday. Ryan complained to the News, "I can't imagine that any New Yorker believes that someone who sets off a bomb ought to go anywhere but jail."

Yesterday, three corrections officers at Rikers Island, as well as 12 adolescent inmates, were indicted on charges "ranging from manslaughter, conspiracy, enterprise corruption and other offenses stemming from an investigation into the death of an 18-year-old inmate at a Rikers Island detention facility." Apparently an 18-year-old Christopher Robinson was beaten to death, after refusing to participate in "The Program," which the Daily News calls the guards' "fight club" of inmates. The Bronx DA's office explained, "inmates who went along with the Program agreed to turn over a percentage of the monetary value in their inmate commissary account and also give up some of their phone privileges to the 'foot soldiers and enforcers' of the Program," and those who didn't would be assaulted after enforcers—the guards would give "The Program" enforcers access to remote areas for beatings. Two guards Michael McKie and Khalid Nelson were held on $200,000 bail for criminal enterprise while guard Denise Albright was held on $50,000 bail for conspiracy and assault.

A Rikers Island corrections officer is being investigated for possibly helping an accused cop killer try to escape from custody. The unidentified guard may have passed a handcuff key to Lee Woods, one of the men accused of gunning down Officer Russel Timoshenko a year ago during a traffic stop. The key was discovered in Woods' digestive tract when he was passed through a metal detector at the jail.

Earlier this week it was announced that Foxy Brown would be released from prison after serving a drama-filled eight months behind bars. The first stop on her own personal freedom (publicity) tour, she said, was church, where "I've got to get on my knees." But what really came first was shopping in Harlem, followed by a trip to her mother's home in Prospect Heights.

Parents of the woman accused of killing real estate broker to the stars Linda Stein have been championing her innocence to news stations. Natavia Lowery's mother Lottie Lowery-Walsh and her stepfather Daniel Walsh spoke to WCBS 2 and WABC 7 about the 26-year-old's inability to have committed a crime.

Last we heard, rapper Foxy Brown, who has been on Rikers for about 8 months now, was trying to get an early release because of her "hearing problems". Deaf or not, something worked, and this week she'll be a free woman once again.

Remy Ma, who is possibly more famous now for what landed her in jail than for her music, is still managing to make headlines from behind bars. A little first-degree assault and weapons charges aren't going to stand in the way of her dream wedding, to be held later this month on a little island off the coast of the Bronx.

The family of a possibly insane killer who butchered a doctor now wants him to be reexamined. Last week, a lawyer for David Tarloff, who killed a psychiatrist in her Upper East Side office and attacked her colleague with a variety of knives in February, mentioned his client's problems and now a motion reveals their extent.

David Tarloff, who is accused of slaying an Upper East Side therapist with a meat cleaver, is apparently getting some bad treatment himself on Rikers Island. Reportedly he isn't receiving his medication properly, or at all.