Ramon Rivera was already on Rikers Island dealing with housebreaking fees when he obtained into deeper bother.
In Might, the 51-year-old inmate kicked a correction officer and smacked her right into a wall after his decompensating psychological well being landed him within the Bellevue Jail Ward.
Rivera was charged with assault for the incident. A second conviction might have added months to his 364-day housebreaking sentence, leaving him behind bars on Nov. 18 — the day he allegedly stabbed and killed three individuals in Manhattan.
However court docket transcripts obtained by the NBC New York I-Crew confirmed that on Sept. 4, Rivera took a deal supplied by the Manhattan district legal professional’s workplace, pleading responsible to tried assault and receiving a 90-day jail sentence.
Regardless of the second crime, Rivera didn’t serve any further time.
The deal advocated by the assistant district legal professional and accredited by Choose Janet McDonnell in court docket that day made the second sentence of 90 days concurrent along with his first sentence. By that point, he had already served seven months.
“I don’t anticipate this plea will change his expected release date which is October 17, 2024,” the ADA mentioned, in keeping with the transcripts.
“A plea offer to run concurrent instead of consecutive sentences was a tragic decision,” mentioned Craig Rothfeld a criminologist and jail marketing consultant with the agency Inside Outdoors Ltd.
Rothfeld mentioned selecting consecutive sentences might have saved Rivera incarcerated one other 60-90 days.
“The other tragic decision was made by the NYC Department of Corrections, when they awarded him his ‘good time,'” Rothfeld mentioned.
Had the DOC revoked Rivera’s day off for good habits, he may need remained jailed till Feb. 2025. As a substitute, he was launched on Oct. 17, after serving two-thirds of his 364-day sentence.
The DOC didn’t reply to the I-Crew’s particular questions on why they didn’t penalize Rivera for assaulting considered one of their correction officers.
In an announcement, DOC spokesman Patrick Gallahue mentioned “When it comes to discharge and sentences, the Department rules are set out in Correction Law, which have been in place for decades.”
Some jail reform advocates instructed the I-Crew one motive the DOC might have prevented confronting the assault head-on is that their correction officer, Carol Garcia, was additionally charged within the assault, after being caught on surveillance video attempting to kick Rivera again after he was restrained, in keeping with the NYC Division of Investigation.
Officer Garcia pleaded responsible to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to 10 days of neighborhood service in keeping with regulation enforcement.
“There is no excuse for this defendant or any correction officer to attempt to assault a person in custody,” mentioned Jocelyn Strauber, the commissioner for the town’s Division of Investigations.
The Manhattan DA’s workplace didn’t touch upon why they beneficial a concurrent sentence for Rivera. However sources within the workplace instructed the I-Crew that given the totality of the circumstances together with the correction officer’s unlawful conduct and lack of bodily accidents, a 90 day concurrent sentence was an applicable disposition.
The transcripts reviewed by the I-Crew replicate that each one events and the decide have been conscious of Rivera’s extreme psychological sickness. His protection legal professional mentioned in court docket that his consumer is a recognized schizophrenic who had been non-responsive to many questions on the case. Transcripts present the legal professional mentioned Rivera was vocal about what he referred to as his “mental discontrol.”
Native criminologists agree about 20% of the prisoners on Rikers Island are coping with extreme psychological sickness.
Prosecutors, the decide and the DOC couldn’t have recognized that Ramon Rivera can be accused of killing three individuals one month after being launched, mentioned Michael Jacobson, a former NYC correction and probation commissioner.
Jacobson at the moment serves on a fee created by the Metropolis Council to look at changing Rikers island with smaller, borough-based jails. He says the concurrent sentences and obvious constant lack of give attention to Rivera’s analysis mirrored within the I-Crew’s evaluate of court docket transcripts have been missed alternatives.
“The bigger-picture problem, however, is that keeping prisoners with mental illness longer in a place like Rikers may only make them worse by the time they are eventually released. Our system is missing what other countries have, which is a secure detention system specifically for prisoners with mental illness,” Jacobson mentioned.
