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ICE Detainee In NJ Jail Says Guards Beat, Sexually Assaulted Him In Shower
By
Matt Katz
Published Sep 18, 2019
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Matt Katz / WNYC
By
Matt Katz
Published Sep 18, 2019
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UPDATE, November 27th, 2019: The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office released a statement saying that after an investigation in conjunction with the corrections department’s internal affairs unit, it concluded that the claims by Jose Hernandez-Velasquez and another detainee “were not supported by the evidence,” including video and witness statements.
Prosecutors are investigating claims that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee held at a jail in Newark was beaten and sexually assaulted by Essex County corrections officers, Gothamist/WNYC has learned.
Jose Hernandez Velasquez, a 20-year-old Salvadoran who has lived in New Jersey since he was 1, ended up in ICE custody on an order of deportation due to a series of low-level offenses, including disorderly conduct and trespassing. On May 17th, violence erupted at the Essex County jail after Hernandez Velasquez had a confrontation with another detainee and spit on a county corrections officer, according to a 51-page incident report obtained through a public records request (see below).
Listen to Matt Katz discuss Hernandez Velasquez's assault allegations with Jami Floyd on WNYC's All Things Considered:
Hernandez Velasquez allegedly refused to be handcuffed, and officers swarmed the immigration unit from across the jail. In the ensuing chaos, an officer’s bulletproof vest was stripped off and briefly misplaced, and handcuffs were lost. Pepper spray was deployed around numerous immigrants who had gathered for lunch. As Hernandez Velasquez was subdued, several detainees cursed and called an officer racist, kicked on windows and doors, and acted “extremely rowdy,” according to an account from one Corrections Department sergeant.
What happened next is now under investigation by the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, said sources familiar with the investigation who weren’t authorized to comment publicly. It follows an ongoing investigation into a separate incident of alleged sexual assault at the jail last May. Officers are expected to be interviewed, as are the criminally charged inmates and civil immigrant detainees who are held at the Essex County Correctional Facility through a multimillion dollar contract with ICE.
Hernandez Velasquez is a graduate of Dover High School in Morris County. Unlike his parents, who have legal status, he’s undocumented. He said that the incident began when an officer refused to give him his tray for lunch, according to a detailed account he gave his attorney, Rachel Salazar of Legal Services of New Jersey. He acknowledged getting angry and cursing at the officer, who then punched him in the face and shoulder.
Eventually officers handcuffed Hernandez Velasquez and took him for a shower so pepper spray could be washed off, according to the incident report.
Hernandez Velasquez said he was bleeding badly when he was brought into the showers — an area of the jail where there aren’t cameras — by masked officers who forced him to strip naked, put his hands over his head and stand underneath hot water. He said he was punched about 30 times, kneed, hit with a broomstick and threatened with a pellet gun. When he fell on the ground, he claimed his genitals were stepped on by an officer, which constitutes sexual assault. He also said a second detainee was brought into the shower for a beating.
Hernandez Velasquez was then taken to the emergency room at University Hospital in Newark. In hospital records reviewed by WNYC, a doctor reports that Hernandez Velasquez was assaulted by multiple individuals, and complained of bruising on his neck and eye, blurry vision and pain in his genitals. A doctor expressed “clinical concern for testicular injury,” and he had ultrasounds taken of his head and scrotum. Two officers were also injured in the incident, according to the county records, but there is no indication that they were hospitalized.
Hernandez Velasquez was instructed to follow up with a private doctor in two to three days; he told his attorney that never happened.
Instead, after being released from the hospital, he was put into the special housing unit, known as solitary confinement. He said he slept on a urine-soaked mattress for the first five days. He didn’t have access to a phone and wasn’t able to file a grievance about the alleged assault for 30 days.
Hernandez Velasquez was interviewed about the assault without his lawyer present. At that interview, officers told him he would be criminally charged with assault and related offenses. Those charges are pending, and he is now housed in a criminal unit of the Essex County Correctional Facility.
The allegations against the officers weren’t initially investigated by the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, the agency that brings criminal charges. Instead, sources said, prosecutors closed the case after reviewing a probe by the county Department of Corrections’ own internal affairs unit. Prosecutors only reopened the investigation after Gothamist/WNYC began reporting this story and, a source said, new information came to light.
“We do reexamine and reopen cases when someone comes forward with new information,” said Katherine Carter, a spokeswoman for the county prosecutor. She said she couldn’t speak specifically about this case.
Last month WNYC reported that Faruk Karimu, a cab driver from the Bronx, was deported after making a sexual assault allegation against officers at the Essex County jail. The investigation was ongoing when he was put on a plane back to his native Ghana, even though federal law forbids immigrants from being deported amid a criminal probe. Karimu also alleged that his assault began after he complained to corrections officers about how he was being treated.
And in April, WNYC told the story of Yuri McKoy, who was given a body cavity search at the Essex County jail and then taken to the hospital in a futile search for contraband that officers alleged he had inside his body.
The jail was lambasted earlier this year by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General for "unsanitary and unsafe conditions," like "foul smelling and unrecognizable" hamburger patties. The jail was also cited for inappropriately strip-searching and segregating detainees in solitary confinement.
Several names of officers involved on May 17th were redacted in the incident report provided by the Essex County counsel’s office in response to a public records request. Pieces of narrative in which officers explain what happened were also redacted.
Incident Reports on Jose He... by mattkatz on Scribd
Officer E. Amankwa, president of the corrections’ union, defended those who work in the jail as professionals. “A lot of times there’s this allegation,” he said. “And nine times out of 10 it is going to be proven to be wrong.”
He said he couldn’t comment specifically about this case because the matter is under investigation. But he said ICE detainees are more likely to level such allegations because they are civilly detained. “Because they know they’re not criminals, [they think] they shouldn’t be held to the rules other inmates are held to,” he said.
From 2016 to 2018, there were 10 allegations of sexual assault at the Essex County Jail against sheriff’s officers, according to a report provided by the county. None of the 10 complaints were substantiated.
Amy Fettig, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project, said that “unwanting touching of the genitals” is sexual assault, and federal standards require that the accused officers be moved to a position not interacting with prisoners, pending the outcome of the investigation. The jail’s own policy also mandates this.
A spokesman for Essex County, Anthony Puglisi, said he couldn’t comment on an open investigation, but “it is the practice of the [jail] to prohibit contact between officers and alleged victims.”
Fettig said the incident should have been investigated by an outside agency, not the same department that employs the accused officers. She said the fact that the jail has been cited for poor conditions is a “red flag” because it indicates that there is insufficient oversight over the treatment of detainees. “In that kind of context you see physical and sexual abuse flourish,” she said, “because essentially it’s a lawless place.”
The allegations are likely to renew political pressure on local elected officials — Joe DiVincenzo, the county executive, and the county board of freeholders, all of whom are Democrats — to either scrap its multimillion dollar contract with ICE or at least use the profits to improve conditions. Discussions have been underway for months about creating an independent body to oversee conditions for ICE detainee, but nothing has yet been announced.
Matt Katz reports on air at WNYC about immigration, refugees and national security.
You can follow him on Twitter at @mattkatz00.
Tagged
immigration and customs enforcement
ICE
Matt Katz
Matt Katz is a former WNYC & Gothamist reporter.
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