NEW YORK — Twenty-three inmates at the troubled federal jail in Brooklyn have been charged with crimes ranging from smuggling weapons in a Doritos bag to the stabbing last month of a man convicted in the killing of hip-hop legend Jam Master Jay.
Federal prosecutors announced the charges Thursday amid a crackdown on violence and dysfunction at the Metropolitan Detention Center, the only federal jail in New York City. The facility’s nearly 1,200 inmates include Sean “Diddy” Combs, Luigi Mangione and Sam Bankman-Fried.
Fifteen of the inmates charged were accused in six separate stabbings, slashings or beatings.
Six were charged in a Feb. 22 melee that injured multiple inmates, including Karl Jordan Jr., one of two men convicted last year in the 2002 slaying of Run-D.M.C. star Jam Master Jay. Jordan, identified in court papers as John Doe 1, was stabbed in the back 18 times. At least nine other inmates had wounds consistent with being stabbed or slashed and five, including Jordan, were hospitalized, prosecutors said.
The arrests come in the wake of a sweep last October in which investigators from the federal Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department inspector general and other local, state and federal law enforcement agencies seized drugs, homemade weapons and electronic devices from the Brooklyn jail.
Five inmates were charged with attempting to smuggle contraband into the jail by throwing a rope out a window and having someone on the outside hook items onto it.
Correctional officers caught four of the men last June as they pulled a rope loaded with contraband through the window of their housing area’s recreation room, prosecutors said. Attached to it, prosecutors said, was what appeared to be suboxone, marijuana, a scalpel, a phone charger, lighters, and cigarettes.
Another inmate was caught last October with 21 ceramic blades after pulling them out of a bag of Doritos and placing them in his shirt in the jail’s visiting room, prosecutors said.
In a previously announced case, a now-former correctional officer was charged with trying to smuggle bags of marijuana and cigarettes into the jail in vacuum-sealed bags in January. Another man, who was not an inmate at MDC Brooklyn, was charged with supplying contraband to inmates after officers in December found a package on a jail roof that contained cellphones, marijuana and alcohol. Inmates were attempting to smuggle in the package by rope, prosecutors said.
The Bureau of Prisons has said it’s working to remedy problems at the Brooklyn jail, where detainees, advocates and judges have routinely complained about “dangerous, barbaric conditions,” including rampant violence.
A group of senior Bureau of Prisons officials known as the Urgent Action Team has focused in recent months on bringing the Brooklyn jail back to adequate staffing levels and ensuring it is in good repair. They have made repeated visits to the facility and meet weekly to address issues at the jail.
In September, federal prosecutors charged nine inmates in a spate of attacks at the jail and a correctional officer was charged with shooting at a car during an unauthorized high-speed chase. In October, an inmate was charged in a murder-for-hire plot that led to the death of a 28-year-old woman outside a New York City nightclub.
An ongoing Associated Press investigation has uncovered deep, previously unreported flaws within the Bureau of Prisons, an agency with more than 30,000 employees, 158,000 inmates, 122 facilities and an annual budget of about $8 billion.
AP reporting has revealed rampant criminal activity by employees, dozens of escapes, chronic violence, deaths and severe staffing shortages that have hampered responses to emergencies, including inmate assaults and suicides.