Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark and Jocelyn E. Strauber, NYC Department of Investigation commissioner (DOI), announced on Monday, July 25, that an NYC Department of Correction (DOC) captain and three DOC Officers have been charged for failing to help an incarcerated individual who had attempted suicide by hanging himself in a holding cell in Rikers Island in 2019. The inmate suffered significant brain damage.

 

Clark said of the case, “The defendants ignored their duty as correction officers to maintain custody, care and control of the person incarcerated, by allegedly waiting nearly eight minutes until they rendered assistance to the inmate whom they saw hanging. The young man is now living with extensive brain damage.”

 

Clark said DOC Captain Terry Henry, 37, and DOC correction officers, Daniel Fullerton, 27, Kenneth Hood, 35, and Mark Wilson, 46, were arraigned on first-degree reckless endangerment, second-degree reckless endangerment, and official misconduct before Bronx Supreme Court Justice George Villegas.

 

According to the investigation by the DOI and the Bronx District Attorney’s Public Integrity Bureau, the victim, Nicholas Feliciano, then 18 years old, was inside Intake Pen 11 in the George R. Vierno Center on the night of Nov. 27, 2019, when he tied two sweatshirts to the ceiling of the holding cell and wrapped them around his neck. Feliciano stood on the privacy partition, crouched down, then stepped off the partition, causing the sweatshirts to constrict his neck. Officials from the Bronx District Attorney’s office said Feliciano’s body shook and twisted for approximately two minutes until he went still.

 

According to the investigation, over the course of seven minutes and 51 seconds, DOC staff and other personnel can be seen on surveillance video walking past Feliciano and taking no action to cut him down or render aid. Officials from the Bronx District Attorney’s office said defendants, Hood, Wilson, and Fullerton, were on post in the Intake, and their supervisor at the time was Henry. Henry, Fullerton, and another correction officer ultimately attempted to cut Feliciano down, and the victim fell to the ground, limp. The officials added that the DOC employees began CPR and called for medical assistance. They said Feliciano suffered significant brain damage and is currently in a rehabilitation center.

 

Reacting to the case, Strauber said, “As alleged, these four correction officer defendants failed to provide aid to an inmate who attempted suicide in a holding cell at Rikers. They delayed assistance or intervention for nearly eight minutes, despite their observations of the inmate, and other inmates’ pleas for help. These officers violated Department of Correction regulations, which required them to protect that inmate, and they broke the law, as charged. DOI thanks the Bronx District Attorney’s Office for its partnership on this investigation.”

 

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Cassie Perez and Jared Rosen of the Public Integrity Bureau, under the supervision of Omer Wiczyk, chief of the Public Integrity Bureau, and under the overall supervision of Denise Kodjo, deputy chief of the Investigations Division, and Wanda Perez-Maldonado, chief of the Investigations Division.

 

Clark thanked trial preparation assistant, Carlina Bayuelo, of the Public Integrity Bureau for her assistance in the case. She also thanked DOI for its investigation of this matter by Deputy Inspector General Richard Askin under the supervision of Inspector General Whitney Ferguson, deputy commissioner/chief of investigations, Dominick Zarrella, and first deputy commissioner, Daniel G. Cort.

 

A person charged with a crime is deemed innocent unless and until convicted in a court of law. The defendants are due back in court on Sept. 15.