Friday, March 29

NYC Bronx jail barge detainee dies in East River escape leap


A detainee who tried to escape by jumping from a jail barge in the Bronx into the East River has died, city Correction Department officials have confirmed.

Gregory Acevedo, 48, jumped roughly 50 feet from the rooftop recreation yard at the Vernon C. Bain Center in Hunt’s Point about 11:44 am Tuesday after climbing a fence and crawling through razor wire in an escape attempt.

At 5:50 am Wednesday, city Correction Department higher ups were alerted Acevedo had died, internal documents obtained by The News show.

In a statement issued at 9:38 am Wednesday, Correction Department Commissioner Louis Molina said Acevedo died 10:59 pm Tuesday. He had been taken to Mount Sinai Queens after he was removed from the river unresponsive and in cardiac arrest by NYPD harbor unit cops, who took him to a pier on Rikers Island.

“He was gone when he hit the water,” a Correction Department source said.

Molina called Acevedo’s death an “immense loss” and said investigations are under way.

Acevedo’s death is the 15th in Correction Department custody so far this year. Sixteen detainees died in custody in 2021. Sixteen detainees died in custody in all of 2021.

The death comes less than two months from a key federal court hearing which may decide whether the jails remain in the city’s control or are turned over to a federal receiver. The city is trying to install its “action plan” to fix the jails ahead of the hearing.

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But DeRay McKesson, director of Campaign Zero, which advocates for receivership, noted that eight people have died in the jails since the action plan was approved June 10 by Judge Laura Taylor Swain pending a show of positive results.

“Judge Swain vowed to hold DOC accountable if their action plan failed. By any conceivable standard, it has,” McKesson said. “The pace of deaths has actually increased since the last hearing. There’s no reason to wait until November to make this decision. This department cannot fix itself.”

Among the most recent deaths, Kevin Bryan somehow got into a staff bathroom off limits to detainees and hung himself Sept. 14.

Michael Nieves, 40, cut his own throat Aug. 30 with a Correction Department-issued razor that staff failed to take back from him.

Ricardo Cruciani, a 67-year-old doctor convicted of sexually abusing multiple patients, hung himself Aug. 15 in general population — after having repeatedly threatened to take his life. His death deprived his many victims of the opportunity to confront him at sentencing

Mary Yehudah, 31, died May 18 from complications of diabetes after medical staff failed to do a basic urine test to screen her for the illness, according to a lawsuit filed by her family.

A Board of Correction report issued Sept 12 on six suicides and four overdoses in the jails in 2021 found a range of staffing breakdowns that contributed to those fatalities.

Acevedo’s leap follows an escape from the Bain Center in July 2021 when David Mordukhaev, 30, shimmed from his cell down a rope made of sheets and got away for several days before he was recaptured.

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Investigators were looking into whether a use of force by correction officers sparked Acevedo’s escape, sources said. Officers used pepper spray on Acevedo at some point as he tried to escape.

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The detainee’s lawyer, Warren Silverman, said the officers pepper sprayed the man as he was on the jail’s fence.

Silverman said Tuesday the incident was a “massive failure” on the part of the Correction Department.

In 1995, Acevedo was convicted of attempted murder, robbery, assault and escape in Brooklyn. He served 20 years in prison and was paroled in 2016, state records show.

He was arrested Feb. 26 on a robbery and assault charge in Queens, which led the state to move to violate his parole. He was ordered held without bail.

According to the criminal complaint, Acevedo broke into a van in Ozone Park and stole a box of tools.

The owners of the van spotted him and Acevedo allegedly attacked them with two screwdrivers, causing puncture wounds, scrapes and bruises.

Acevedo, a lifelong New Yorker according to his lawyer, lived for periods after his release from prison in shelters in Brooklyn and Queens, records show.


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