After a sex-trafficking indictment, the superwealthy rapper and music mogul has been compelled to go away behind his grand Los Angeles and Miami mansions for the confines of a infamous Brooklyn, New York, jail.
A former warden on the facility advised Business Insider that Combs might anticipate to be handled like several of the opposite 1,200 inmates on the Brooklyn jail.
“Any time one is being detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center, it's never going to be a picnic,” Cameron Lindsay, the retired warden, advised BI.
The jail “is hell on earth for anyone unfortunate enough to live there,” Mark Bederow, a criminal-defense lawyer and former Manhattan prosecutor, advised BI.
REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
“To go from living in mansions in Beverly Hills and Miami to the MDC is as epic a change in circumstances as one can have,” Bederow stated, including: “All that money won't make it warmer when it's cold, colder when it's hot. It won't make the food more edible. It won't make the cockroaches stay away.”
During a Manhattan federal court docket listening to Tuesday, US Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky ordered Combs to be despatched to jail forward of his prison trial. Prosecutors argued in court docket that Combs might attempt to flee the nation or try to meddle in the sex-trafficking investigation.
At the listening to, Combs pleaded not responsible to intercourse trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, and unlawful transportation for prostitution.
Combs' attorneys filed an attraction to the decide's resolution in an try to get their entrepreneur consumer out of lockup, but it surely failed.
At a court docket listening to Wednesday, US District Judge Andrew Carter, who will oversee the not-yet-scheduled trial, denied Comb's attraction and ordered that he stay in jail till his trial.
Combs to be held in Specialized Housing Unit away from the overall inhabitants
Lindsay, the previous warden on the jail — which has lengthy confronted scrutiny over stories of poor circumstances and violence — advised BI Combs shouldn't anticipate any particular remedy throughout his keep on the facility the place pretrial detainees are held.
“He'll be treated just like every other inmate,” Lindsay, who served because the warden on the Metropolitan Detention Center from 2007 to 2009, stated.
Combs' protection lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, advised the court docket on the Wednesday attraction listening to that Combs can be housed in the Special Housing Unit of the jail, which is separate from the overall inhabitants. Agnifilo stated it was “certainly hard to be an inmate” and that it is robust to arrange for trial given the varied limitations Combs is dealing with.
Agnifilio additionally requested the decide whether or not he might advocate that Combs be housed in Essex County jail as an alternative of the MDC. The decide, noting that the BOP usually decides the place an inmate be held, requested Combs's legal professionals and prosecutors to file a joint standing report earlier than he decides.
Lindsay stated Combs was most probably being held away from the overall inhabitants for his personal security.
“Given his status as a celebrity and a rap star, I would believe, of course, that he would be single-celled and isolated under very austere conditions,” Lindsay advised BI.
The area can be a small, concrete “stereotypical” jail cell with a metal sink and bathroom, Lindsay stated, calling it “shockingly different” from the life-style Combs is accustomed to.
Lindsay stated Combs was higher off separated from the overall inhabitants as a result of the costs towards him make him a goal for the opposite detainees.
Federal prosecutors allege in an indictment that for many years Combs “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct.”
Combs' movie star standing “combined with the fact that the charges against him relate to the abuse of women, that certainly would make him an easier target — a target that some inmates definitely would attempt to exploit,” Lindsay stated.
Combs' attorneys declined to remark for this story earlier Wednesday, however pointed BI to the attraction they filed, which says, “Several courts in this District have recognized that the conditions at Metropolitan Detention Center are not fit for pre-trial detention.”
The legal professionals wrote: “Just earlier this summer, an inmate was murdered. At least four inmates have died by suicide there in the past three years. Numerous Courts in this district have raised concerns with the horrific conditions of detention there.”
Bederow, the previous federal prosecutor, advised BI that circumstances on the jail had been “so bad that lawyers make motions to avoid detention based upon the wretched conditions there.”
“And sometimes it works,” he stated.
