Maggot-infested meals being served inmates at Brooklyn federal jail, lawyers say

Brooklyn’s troubled federal jail has been serving maggot-infested beans to detainees, according to defense lawyers.

The apparent barf-inducing food conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center were detailed in a letter sent on behalf of Joseph Elias, a convicted arsonist who’s asking for time served after being held at the Sunset Park jail for more than 20 months.

“The MDC had begun serving him maggot-infested food in the SHU [segregated housing unit] as well as food to which he is allergic, including fish, which is listed as an allergy in his medical records,” wrote defense lawyer Michael Robotti in a letter to Brooklyn Federal Court Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall, who’s scheduled to sentence Elias this week.

“Joseph showed us what appeared to be maggots that were in his food during a video call. As a result of the maggots and allergens, Joseph stopped eating the food being served to him.”

Elias’s lawyers asked MDC’s lawyers on March 15 and March 19 that he no longer receive infested food or fish, and that he be given Ensure to help him regain the weight he’d lost, but the agency blew off both requests, Robotti wrote.

“The ongoing harsh conditions of confinement at the MDC warrant time served here. Joseph needs mental-health and drug treatment; far from providing him the support that he needs, the MDC is exacerbating Joseph’s conditions,” he wrote.

His letter, and the request for leniency, comes on the heels of a Manhattan federal judge’s ruling that conditions at the MDC are so bad they constituted “extraordinary reasons” not to lock up another defendant awaiting sentencing in a drug case.

Elias isn’t the only one there dealing with maggot-infested meals.

“This is the worst I’ve ever known it to be,” said defense lawyer Esere Onaodowan. One of her clients, who she didn’t name, was served infested and spoiled food during a 20-day stay in the SHU, and he’s lost 15 pounds as a result, she said.

“Recently, within the last two weeks, there’s been maggots in the beans they gave them. The chicken is partially cooked, but then also spoiled, rotting meat,” she said. “The milk is served four days after the expiration date, so it’s often spoiled.”

The problems aren’t limited to solitary confinement — Onaodowan said her client has worked in the jail kitchen, where he would remove cockroaches and bug parts from the food before serving it to his fellow detainees.

Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman Scott Taylor wouldn’t answer questions about the specific complaints about the MDC, though he offered general comment about how the federal prison system is committed to the safety and health of its inmates.

“For privacy, safety, and security reasons, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) does not comment on matters related to pending litigation, ongoing legal proceedings, or ongoing investigations nor do we comment on anecdotal allegations,” he said.

The MDC, which handles pre-trial detention for both the Manhattan and Brooklyn federal courts and houses close to 1,400 federal inmates, has long been plagued by short-staffing, constant lockdowns and miserable conditions.

Those problems most recently boiled over in January, when Manhattan Federal Court Judge Jesse Furman issued a 19-page ruling laying out a litany of problems, including how the jail lost power for eight days in 2019 during a polar vortex.

“It has gotten to the point that it is routine for judges in both this District and the Eastern District [Brooklyn] to give reduced sentences to defendants based on the conditions of confinement in the MDC,” Furman wrote. “Prosecutors no longer even put up a fight, let alone dispute that the state of affairs is unacceptable.”

His ruling, that the jail’s dreadful conditions constituted “extraordinary reasons” to not lock up a 70-year-old convicted drug dealer as he awaited sentencing, has since been cited by several defense lawyers seeking leniency or release for their clients.

It’s not clear whether Elias, 37, a career criminal who pleaded guilty to arson conspiracy last year, will get a break when he’s sentenced April 5.

He was recruited as part of an extortion scheme to hurl four Molotov cocktails at the Magnum Automotive Body Shop on March 22, 2022, torching several luxury vehicles, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Silverberg wrote in a December sentencing memo.

Elias then called the shop’s owner and offered to identify the arson culprit in exchange for cash — offering up an innocent party after getting paid, prosecutors said. He also took a video of the blaze from his apartment window and boasted, “You hear that? … That’s the sound of a beautiful job well done,” according to Silverberg’s memo.

Prosecutors are asking for a sentence of 77 to 96 months in prison.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn declined comment for this story.