By: Ezra Ashkenazi
An inmate that is awaiting trial for murder and conspiracy charges has used a cellphone to broadcast a Facebook Live video from the same lockup that disgraced Jeffery Epstein hung himself. This shocking incident at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, has led law-enforcement to launch a large-scale investigation into the use of cellphones by prisoners in this facility. Just last year, two correction officers have pleaded guilty to accepting bribes to smuggle in cellphones and other illegal objects into the MCC. “The MCC has more phones than a Best Buy,” one law-enforcement source said.
The 40-second live stream video shows a man named Michael Reid, who is a high ranking member of a Brooklyn-based gang called the “Rockstarz.” In the video, Reid is seen sitting in a poorly lit room, on the bottom of a bunk bed, under a light that is embedded in a cement ceiling. The dialogue in the video cannot be understood, the video ends suddenly as the phone seems to ring.
According to the New York Post, “Reid is one of 10 reputed Rockstarz members who allegedly chased a rival gang-banger — Tyquan Eversly, 21, of the “Very Crispy Gangsters” — through the streets of East New York before one of them fatally shot Eversley when he got tangled in razor wire atop a chain-link fence on March 19.” Reid was then arrested on March 26th, and pleaded guilty on December 7th for bank fraud conspiracy in a 140,000-dollar counterfeit cash scheme. The Bureau of Prisons have been under fire lately after Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy pedophile, was able to kill himself in his jail cell in MCC.
The MCC’s warden, Lamine N’Daye, has been reassigned, and the BOP’s acting director, Hugh Hurwitz has been demoted, in a series of acts by US Attorney General William Barr in an attempt to improve the chaotic situation. Up to 20 MCC employees have subpoenaed over allegations that Epstein’s suicide was able to be acted out as a result of prison guards sleeping on the job.
The BOP has released a statement about the contraband that is being smuggles into jail cells, saying, “Like all correctional agencies, the BOP continues to tackle the problem of contraband being introduced into our facilities, including contraband cell phones…The BOP continually evaluates and deploys as appropriate, contraband-detecting technologies, including walk-through metal detectors and whole-body imaging devices.” The Bureau of Prisons also released a statement regarding their security in the future, saying, “we have employed enhanced staffing patterns in high security prisons as well as strengthened internal security procedures.”
