Rikers Monitor Expected to Take Aim at City Jails Chief in Hearing

A federal monitor who supervises the jail complex on Rikers Island is expected to deliver a sharp rebuke of New York City’s jails chief, Louis A. Molina, in court Tuesday over violent or negligent treatment of incarcerated people by jail staff.

In three reports filed in Federal District Court in recent weeks, the monitor, Steve J. Martin, has accused Mr. Molina and his Department of Correction staff of hiding information and shirking responsibility for recent events at Rikers. The reports demonstrate a stunning lack of trust in the agency.

Mr. Martin wrote last week, for example, that he did not necessarily believe the Department when it said there had been only three deaths in custody this year.

“Given recent concerns regarding the Department’s lack of transparency and the accuracy of data provided, it is possible this number could be higher,” he wrote.

When Mr. Molina began his tenure in January 2022, he helped bring back hundreds of correction officers who had been failing to show up for work each day throughout the previous year.

But violence and chaos have continued at Rikers Island and, this year, Mr. Molina and New York City’s mayor Eric Adams have limited public information about conditions inside. They have stopped informing news outlets when deaths occur and have made it difficult for a city watchdog to access video and other information from Rikers Island.

The Tuesday hearing in federal court may be a precursor to more dramatic action. In April 2022, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan raised the prospect of a federal takeover of Rikers Island, through an official known as a receiver. At least 38 people have died there in the past three years. That possibility has informed much of Mr. Molina’s tenure, and he has vowed to get the complex under control.

If Mr. Martin has lost confidence in Mr. Molina, it could signal a shift in the attitude of the federal judge overseeing his work. Ultimately it would be up to that judge, Laura T. Swain, to appoint a receiver, stripping New York City of its authority.

There is no sign that Mr. Martin will call for receivership on Tuesday. Judge Swain has given no indication that she will appoint an outside authority. Mr. Martin’s latest report, filed Monday, suggests that his goal is more modest: To get timely, accurate information about deaths and other serious incidents on Rikers Island.

Rikers has endured decades of crisis. In 2017, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the complex would close within the next ten years, to be replaced by four smaller jails. The plan depended on bringing down the number of incarcerated people in New York City: The new jail facilities, one in each borough except Staten Island, would comprise roughly 3,300 beds.

But shortly after the pandemic arrived in March 2020, violent crime rose in the New York City. A delay in the processing of court cases contributed to a rise in the population at Rikers. At the same time, hundreds of correction officers, who were hit hard by the virus, stopped showing up for work. By the summer of 2021, the complex was spiraling out of control.

Now, the island’s population has risen above 6,000 and Mayor Adams has questioned the city’s ability to close the complex before the deadline.

Mr. Martin said in the three recent reports that the city’s stonewalling has hindered his ability to oversee Rikers. The first report, issued late last month, focused on five “serious and disturbing” instances in which detainees were injured, harmed or fell ill. Mr. Martin said that he — and by proxy, Judge Swain — had been unaware of the events until reporters had asked about them.

In response, Mr. Molina and Mayor Eric Adams provided video to amNewYork Metro that they claimed showed Mr. Martin’s reports were flawed. The mayor told the outlet that Mr. Martin’s report on the episodes — which included the violent restraint of a person in custody who was reportedly over 80 years old and jails staffs’ failure to help an incarcerated person who was badly beaten by other inmates — had “caused a level of uproar” that was unfair to correction officers and to the incarcerated and had “created the wrong message.”

On Monday, Mr. Martin renewed his criticism, offering more information about two of the specific episodes, including one in May in which a man was paralyzed from the neck down after Department of Correction staff tackled him to the ground.

Mr. Molina’s response, the monitor wrote, suggested “an attempt to excuse or avoid responsibility for a very serious event.”

Next month, Mr. Martin is due to file a report that will assess whether the city has managed to substantially reduce risk to those incarcerated and employed at Rikers Island, with an August hearing before Judge Swain to follow.