A public defender with a Queens nonprofit mired in controversy was hauled off in handcuffs after he was caught smuggling 130 sheets of suspected THC-soaked paper right into a jail on Rikers Island, officers stated Friday.
Bernardo Caceres, a lawyer with Queens Defenders, was visiting his consumer, housebreaking defendant Luis DeJesus, on the Otis Bantum Correctional Middle about 3 p.m. Wednesday when a drug-sniffing canine named Brimma signaled successful on a yellow legal-sized envelope positioned subsequent to a safety machine, in accordance with an account supplied by the Correction Officers Benevolent Affiliation and confirmed by legislation enforcement sources.
A search of the envelope discovered “multiple discolored papers” inside, the union stated. Officers have beforehand stated in public testimony that discolored pages are sometimes a clue of the presence of narcotics.
A variety of liquified medication together with fentanyl have been present in comparable searches. Sometimes, the papers are torn into small items and smoked or resold for smoking throughout the jails.
Caceres and a second lawyer who occurred to be going by means of safety on the similar time had been detained and the Correction Intelligence Part was referred to as in to do additional testing.
That take a look at registered optimistic for THC, the energetic ingredient in marijuana, the union stated. Caceres was charged with selling jail contraband. The opposite lawyer was let go as a result of the officers concluded he was unaware of the contents of the envelope.
Caceres, who gave the impression to be smiling when his picture was taken through the arrest, was issued a desk look ticket and has but to be arraigned. Additional investigation and testing of the proof is critical to verify the presence of the contraband substance, a legislation enforcement official stated Friday.
COBA President Benny Boscio seized on the arrest for example of why looking and scanning of detainee mail into digital type must be authorized within the jails.
“The fact that this attorney would brazenly attempt to smuggle in a large quantity of THC into one of our biggest jails is further proof of why paper documents brought by visitors should be scanned and downloaded electronically onto tablets,” stated COBA President Benny Boscio.
“This also includes moving toward paperless mail which CBA has been calling on the Board of Correction to implement for many years. Our calls have fallen on deaf ears.”
The union relished the arrest, captioning one picture, “Correction Intelligence Bureau Officer Vasquez escorting drug peddling attorney Bernardo Caceres out of OBCC.”
Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie has been urgent for approval to open non-legal mail and search it outdoors of the presence of detainees, however the Board of Correction rejected the measure earlier this yr.
Maginley-Liddie’s predecessor Correction Commissioner Louis Molina beforehand tried to acquire board approval for digital scanning, which means folks in jail wouldn’t get precise paper copies of the mail, however the board refused to deliver the measure to a vote.
Caceres couldn’t be reached for remark. Brian Schatz, a spokesman for Queens Defenders, declined to touch upon the arrest.
He declined to say whether or not Caceres had been suspended pending the result of the investigation.
Caceres’ arrest got here the identical day that founder and former government director of Queens Defenders, Lori Zeno, and her boyfriend and youth program director Rashad Ruhani, had been indicted in Brooklyn federal courtroom for stealing roughly $60,000 from the nonprofit.
Zeno and Ruhani, who beforehand served 26 years in jail for theft, billed a spread of non-public luxuries, together with the lease for a penthouse house in Queens, a visit to Bali, and a $2,600 meal at a steakhouse to the group’s bank cards. In addition they submitted paperwork claiming the spending was enterprise associated, the indictment alleges.
A Brooklyn Defenders spokesman additionally declined touch upon Caceres’ arrest.
