Name: Inmate thrown into solitary confinement for speaking to the Daily News about COVID-19 conditions at Brooklyn jail: lawyers
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Inmate thrown into solitary confinement for speaking to the Daily News about COVID-19 conditions at Brooklyn jail: lawyers

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AdvertisementBy New York Daily NewsDec 21, 2020 at 7:00 amAn inmate at Brooklyn’s federal jail was thrown into solitary confinement for speaking out to the Daily News about the COVID-19 outbreak that has ravaged his unit in the lockup, his lawyer and the district’s top public defender said.Felix Collazo, 40, spoke with The News on Dec. 10, days after he tested positive for coronavirus at the Metropolitan Detention Center. The News ran a story on Collazo the next day, detailing the conditions Collazo said he and other inmates were facing inside Unit 73, .AdvertisementSince then, his lawyer, Robert Radick, has gotten radio silence from his client — despite a scheduled legal phone call — and says in a letter to a Brooklyn Federal Court judge that he heard through “independent means” Collazo had been tossed into a solitary housing unit in the jail.“There appears to be a straightforward but deeply concerning rationale behind the transfer of Mr. Collazo into segregation, especially during a time period when he needs medical attention,” Radick wrote in the Friday night filing.Advertisement“It appears that Mr. Collazo was moved into administrative segregation almost immediately after (and likely as a result of) the publication of an article in the New York Daily News [that] recounted Mr. Collazo’s candid first-hand observations of the conditions in the jail, the lack of adequate medical care, and the absence of preventative measures amidst the recent COVID-19 outbreak.”Radick went on to argue that solitary confinement was the jail’s way of retaliating against his client “for having exercised his First Amendment right to openly discuss what is a gravely important matter of fundamental public concern.”The federal Bureau of Prisons did not respond to requests for comment.As it happensGet updates on the coronavirus pandemic and other news as it happens with our free breaking news email alerts. &gt; Before he went dark, Collazo painted a disturbing picture of the troubled jail. He claimed that inmates were getting little to no medical treatment in his unit, with jail staff taking temperatures but doing nothing else.Collazo — who pleaded guilty to a narcotics distribution charge last year — was tested twice for COVID-19, testing negative on Nov. 30, then positive on Dec. 4, he told The News.He detailed the way that the jail staff tried to separate sick and healthy inmates by moving the negatives onto the upper tier of Unit 73, and the positives to the bottom tier.His desire to shed light on the situation got him punished, said the district’s top public defender.“After the Daily News story ran, clients on Unit 73 told us that Mr. Collazo was taken off the unit and placed in the SHU by officers who were talking angrily about the story,” said Deirdre Von Dornum, the attorney in charge of the Federal Defenders in Brooklyn.AdvertisementMore than 100 people incarcerated at the MDC have tested positive for COVID-19 since the beginning of December, according to the Bureau of Prisons statistics.“We need medical attention. We just want our rights to be respected,” Collazo said. “This is a crucial moment right now for everybody in here. We didn’t ask for this virus.” Advertisement

AdvertisementBy New York Daily NewsDec 21, 2020 at 7:00 amAn inmate at Brooklyn’s federal jail was thrown into solitary confinement for speaking out to the Daily News about the COVID-19 outbreak that has ravaged his unit in the lockup, his lawyer and the district’s top public defender said.Felix Collazo, 40, spoke with The News on Dec. 10, days after he tested positive for coronavirus at the Metropolitan Detention Center. The News ran a story on Collazo the next day, detailing the conditions Collazo said he and other inmates were facing inside Unit 73, .AdvertisementSince then, his lawyer,...

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Inmate thrown into solitary confinement for speaking to the Daily News about COVID-19 conditions at Brooklyn jail: lawyers

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