The Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), a notorious federal jail in Brooklyn, New York, has made the news repeatedly thanks to some high-profile detainees held there to await trial. But federal prosecutors have also charged nine detainees for a series of assaults on fellow detainees, including two murders.

Additionally, as of mid-September 2024, 25% of the lockup’s staff positions were vacant. A little over a month later, on October 28, 2024, multiple federal agencies, including the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG), conducted a sweep that uncovered a trove of contraband drugs, electronics and weapons. That led to smuggling charges against a guard. Earlier that same month, a detainee was also charged in a murder-for-hire plot that resulted in the death of a woman outside a New York City nightclub; the killing was allegedly arranged using a contraband cellphone.

On top of that, the almost three-decade-old MDC has been cited for maintenance problems, power outages, raw sewage and conditions so “inhumane” that some federal judges have refused requests from government prosecutors to detain defendants there, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Aug. 2024, p.24.]

In a bizarre incident, MDC guard Leon Wilson, 49, a 23-year veteran of the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), was on perimeter patrol on September 4, 2023, when he noticed a BMW with tinted windows pull into the facility’s parking lot. Wilson observed it for a short time before “position[ing] his vehicle directly in front of the BMW, which then sped away off MDC-Brooklyn property,” according to DOJ, parent agency to BOP. Wilson began a high-speed pursuit, running red lights before firing three shots using his MDC-issued firearm. One of the BMW’s occupants was hit, but he was not named. After returning to his post, Wilson failed to report discharging his weapon. He was charged in federal court on September 26, 2024, with civil rights violations involving the use of a dangerous weapon resulting in bodily injury. See: United States v. Wilson, USDC (E.D.N.Y.), Case No. 1:24-mj-00553.

Murder-for-Hire Plot Kills Bystander

The murder-for-hire plot was allegedly concocted by BOP prisoner Dajahn McBean, a/k/a “Jeezy Mula” and “Freeze,” 29, while he was detained at MDC in December 2023 to await transfer to a BOP prison after his conviction for a 2017 gang-related shooting. While there, he got into a social media feud with an unnamed rival, apparently using a contraband cellphone. He then allegedly used the same phone to hire several non-incarcerated accomplices to kill the rival.

On Christmas Eve 2023, two of them, Karl Smith, a/k/a “Pacavell,” 26, and Chelsey Harris, a/k/a “Ms. Chinn,” 23, lured the victim to a Queens nightclub, where the unnamed third accomplice shot at him but missed. Unaware that they had set him up, the victim went out again with Smith and Harris two nights later to another Queens club, where the gunman’s aim was marginally better; he shot the rival while he was in his vehicle, wounding him. But a stray bullet killed Chelsea Burgos, 23, the rival’s girlfriend, who was seated next to him.

On October 17, 2024, all three were each charged with one count of murder-for-hire conspiracy resulting in personal injury and death, which carries a mandatory minimum term of life in prison or death; one count of stalking resulting in life threatening bodily injury and death, which carries a maximum term of life in prison; and an additional count of conspiracy to destroy records, which carries a maximum term of five years in prison. See: United States v. McBean, USDC (S.D.N.Y.), Case No. 2:24-cr-00541.

Contraband Smuggling and Detainee-on-Detainee Violence

BOP guard Najee Jackson, 32, was arrested on January 21, 2025, after attempting to smuggle contraband MDC. The one-year BOP newbie repeatedly triggered the metal detector as he proceeded through required staff screening to begin his night shift. When Jackson then removed his BOP-issued protective vest, fellow guards searched it and found vacuum-sealed bags of marijuana, cigarettes, two lighters and rolling papers. Jackson resigned two days later.

His arrest followed the October 2024 sweep by federal agents that netted drugs, including methamphetamine and marijuana, as well as multiple makeshift weapons and over 50 unauthorized cellphones. That was followed by an extended lockdown, however, as Jackson’s arrest highlights, staff are a big source of the prison’s contraband problem. At least seven MDC staff members have been charged with crimes in the past five years, including for accepting bribes and smuggling cellphones and drugs.

Which is not to say that detainees do not contribute to MDC’s problems, too. As McBean’s indictment showed, two other detainees, Andrew Simpson and Devone Thomas, face homicide charges for killing fellow detainee Uriel Whyte on June 7, 2024. Detainees Jamaul Aziz, James Bazemore and Alberto Santiago were charged with murder and conspiracy in the fatal stabbing of fellow detainee Edwin Cordero on July 17, 2024. Another prisoner was stabbed in the spine with an icepick-like weapon but survived.

U.S. Attorney Breon Peace vowed that “[v]iolence will not be tolerated in our federal jails,” but so far that declaration seems only aspirational.

Those High-Profile Detainees

MDC has drawn an outsized share of publicity thanks to more high-profile detainees, including rapper and music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, 55, who was accused in September 2024 of sex trafficking women—and a few men—at private “freak off” parties that he hosted. Denied bail while awaiting trial, his daily existence has become the subject of frequent media reports; several outlets found it newsworthy to report that his Valentine’s Day meal would be a chicken cutlet. Combs appealed his bail denial to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, but he withdrew that appeal on December 13, 2024.

Another notorious detainee, Luigi Mangione, 26, is accused of assassinating United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson, 50, on a New York City street near his office in December 2024. Less well known is fellow detainee Justin Heath Smith, a/k/a Austin Wolfe, 43, a gay adult video performer arrested in June 2024 for possessing kiddie porn.

Previous MDC detainees include Sam Bankman Fried, 32, the founder of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, who was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for fraud in March 2024. Another famous musician, R. Kelly, 59, was held at MDC before his convictions for sex trafficking minors and possessing child pornography in 2021 and 2022, respectively. Former Honduran Pres. Juan Orlando Hernandez, 56, was also confined at MDC after DEA agents grabbed him in Tegucigalpa and brought him to New York to face trial for taking bribes from Central American gangs to protect their cocaine shipments to the U.S. He was convicted and sentenced in March 2024 to 45 years in prison.  

Sources: AP News, Bloomberg News, Daily News, The Independent, Reuters News