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Man says he was held at Rikers 41 hours after making bail
By
Jessy Edwards
Published Nov 25, 2023
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Courtesy, Deandre Donahue
By
Jessy Edwards
Published Nov 25, 2023
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When Deandre Donahue was arrested this winter after getting into a fight at an East Village bar and sent to Rikers Island, his family immediately put up their credit cards to bail him out. By law, he should have been released within three hours.
But the 27-year-old carpenter was held another 41 hours at the notorious jail. In that time, he said he witnessed four fights, saw a man beaten bloody for not wearing clothes in the shower and was packed like “sardines” in an area with no working toilets at the famously-dangerous Eric M. Taylor Center on Rikers Island, which holds new jail admissions.
“I felt like I had gone through a traumatic ordeal,” he said. “It felt like I had survived something that didn't feel like a normal jail.”
This was not the first time someone has claimed they were held at Rikers longer than they were supposed to be after posting bail.
Last year, the Department of Correction agreed to pay up to $300 million in a class action settlement to end claims it violated the law by holding detainees for too long after their bail was paid.
The city agreed to pay claimants $3,500 apiece if officers failed to release them within three hours after bail was paid and has paid out nearly $152 million to claimants to date, according to the New York City Law Department.
The lawsuit says the delays were caused by staffing issues, the department using outdated technology like fax machines to notify officers that bail had been paid and correction officers waiting until they had a “critical mass” of people to release.
Donahue is not eligible to participate in the class action settlement because it only applies to people held beyond the three-hour mark between Oct. 4, 2014 and Oct. 21, 2022.
Still, his story is an example of how problems around release times remain at Rikers.
In 2022, the city jails department said it was bringing its “antiquated systems and processes” into the 21st century by launching a new unit responsible for tracking and evaluating its data and implementing a bail tracking system.
So far this year, the department has released 81% of people within the three-hour window, up from 56% in 2022, department spokesperson Latima Johnson said. The average time for the release is now two hours and 32 minutes.
Deandre Donahue in Times Square.
Courtesy, Deandre Donahue.
She said the law provides exceptions to the three-hour window for certain cases, for example if the person needs medical or mental health assistance post release, or if they have an outstanding warrant in another jurisdiction.
While the situation has improved, the problem has not been fixed. Attorneys said they still get calls about people like Donahue, who should be released within the three hour window, but are not.
‘Everybody was constantly yelling for basic needs’
The charges on which Donahue was sent to Rikers were ultimately dismissed. The fight that led to his arrest happened on the night of Wednesday, Jan. 11, at the East Village bar the Double Down Saloon. Donahue said things got physical after a bartender accused him of fraud when he tried to use his girlfriend’s card at the bar and wouldn’t let him leave.
A judge set bail for the misdemeanor charge because Donahue lives in San Francisco and he had another open misdemeanor case in New York, his attorney Joshua White said. White said holding Donahue in custody was unnecessary and called it an “egregious” decision for someone who had no previous criminal record.
By 9:30 in the morning he was sent to Rikers on Jan. 13, Donahue’s grandma had paid his $2,500 bail, records show. Donahue said he then followed up almost hourly, pleading with the guards to release him.
Donahue said the intake room was packed “like sardines” with nowhere to sit. The one toilet was blocked. In a day and a half, Donahue said he witnessed four fights. He said one man got beaten up for not knowing the proper bathroom etiquette, showering without his underwear on. “He was beaten and before any guard was able to get to him, he was already bloody and nearly unconscious.”
When another man in his intake group had a seizure, help was slow to arrive, he said.
“We were yelling for the COs and they were taking their time, it seems like they're extremely understaffed for the amount of people that are there,” he said. “Everybody was constantly yelling for basic needs… water, toilet paper, medics.”
"People are constantly in distress there, it's a literal madhouse,” he said. “You cannot keep your sanity in there.”
The city is currently facing federal receivership due to the mounting levels of violence and imminent risk of harm to detainees at its jails over the last eight years. Nine people have died in Department of Correction custody this year, including, most recently, Manish Kumar, who died last month in the same facility where Donahue was held.
While Donahue was inside, White advocated for his release by contacting Rikers Island, the Department of Correction and the Board of Correction in at least a dozen phone calls and emails.
He kept a record of each of his interactions and said he was told there was only one staff member at Rikers intake who could see the bail payment confirmation and that person was not in.
Donahue said he was finally released on Sunday, Jan. 15 at 2:30 a.m. into 31 degree weather. He said he was given a jacket and a bus ticket, but his phone was at the precinct and money he had in his pocket when he was detained was gone. A fellow detainee’s mom helped him get an Uber.
Bail release problem is better, but not resolved
While the bail release process has improved since the 2022 settlement, attorneys said some people like Donahue are still being held too long.
Legal Aid supervising attorney Arielle Reid said her team was “inundated” with requests to help people held too long after bail was paid in 2022. She said the issue has improved this year, “but the problem hasn't completely gone away.”
New York’s 2020 bail reform has slowly phased out the assessment of cash bail in most cases involving misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies.
This means fewer people detained on bail overall and so fewer instances of people being released late, Queens Defenders staff attorney Mani Tafari said. But it does still happen, he added.
Meanwhile, eligible former detainees recently started to see their $3,500 checks arrive from the 2022 settlement, said Debra Greenberger, a partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel and one of the attorneys representing the plaintiff class.
While the settlement has closed, people can still file a late claim until Dec. 12, she said.
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Jessy Edwards
Jessy Edwards covers incarceration and public safety. Before working at Gothamist/WNYC, she covered daily and breaking news at NBC New York and Brooklyn news at BK Reader. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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