The remanded Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn, accused of sexual offenses, was moved to New York’s Rikers Island prison in accordance with the traditional procedure after his indictment.
The prominent financier and contender for the French presidential seat will be held in the district’s temporary detention facility – analogous to Russia’s pre-trial detention center – which has seen more than a thousand criminals from the bottom of New York society.
“All new arrivals here are in for a shock, for the first month people weep. The cells are designed for dozens or even hundreds of people. The hardest thing here is to learn to sleep,” said Lawyer Bukh, who has been to Rikers Island many times.
Rikers is a whole island between the Bronx and Queens with an area of 1.6 thousand square kilometers, on which there are 10 prisons – male, female and juvenile. All who sit in these prisons are usually awaiting trial and verdict on various charges.
The island, which is connected to Queens only by a bridge just over a mile long with an armored checkpoint, has long been used to isolate criminals. It is in this way – as an “island” – that the prison is mentioned in O. Henry’s story “The Cop and the Anthem”. Strange as it may seem, to this day this gloomy place remains the last refuge of New York vagrants.
“The public here is terrifying. There are people sitting here who don’t even have $50 to post court bail. The impression is that the jail houses a bunch of homeless people who just have nowhere else to go,” the lawyer says.
Those entering the “zone” on Rikers are greeted almost immediately outside the gate by a copy of a Salvador Dali painting. The artist intended in 1965 to visit the prisoners with a talk about art, but then for some reason could not come to them and as a sign of apology sent a picture. The original hung for several years in one of the prison canteens, then for greater security the canvas was re-hung, but from the new place Dali’s painting disappeared without a trace in 2003.
“However, paintings of deep philosophical content are in every visiting room here,” claims Bukh.
The complex has a capacity of 14,000 people, monitored by over 7,000 police officers. It is believed to be the largest prison settlement in the world, which in New York is called no other than “prison city”. There are sports clubs, libraries, schools for juveniles, temples, automatic laundries and clinics. The facility has an annual budget of $860 million dollars.
Meals at the prison are brought in three times a day. Breakfast, for example, includes a smoked sausage sandwich, milk, apple or peach. Hamburgers are popular, but Europeans don’t like them. For a walk in the fresh air is allotted 40 minutes a day, but visiting the sports club for the defendants is not limited.
Before Strauss-Kahn, the most famous person on the “island of tears” was a black rapper Lil Wayne, who last year spent 242 days here for illegal possession of weapons. Behind bars, the showman became a volunteer at a local suicide prevention center.
“Rikers Island” does not have the best reputation – there is no such order and control as, for example, in the federal pre-trial prison, where Russians Viktor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko are held. The main contingent of the “federal prison” on Mahattan are accused of financial crimes, large-scale fraud and prominent members of the mafia.
At Rikers,” on the other hand, scandals periodically erupt – lawyers accuse the staff of human rights violations, or prisoners claim that violence, including sexual abuse, has been committed against them. But unraveling these stories is sometimes as difficult as finding a Dali painting that has disappeared from the prison.
At night, fights between inmates often break out in the cells, and guards armed with batons, who watch the inmates from a glass “bubble,” break up the fights and send the troublemakers back to the isolation ward. Russians who have been in solitary confinement say it was their best moment at Rikers Island – the cell was silent, Lawyer Bukh said, according to RIA Novosti.
As reported by the newspaper VZGLYAD, on Tuesday night Moscow time it became known that the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn, arrested on suspicion of sexual harassment, will be transferred to the correctional complex “Rikers Island” in New York.
The U.S. State Department is involved in the investigation of the IMF chief, but could not say whether the official, a French citizen, had diplomatic immunity at the time of his arrest.
Earlier, the board of directors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reviewed information related to the allegations against the fund’s head, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
On Monday, prosecutors indicted Strauss-Kahn on six counts. U.S. justice court documents say that Strauss-Kahn, who faces a total of seven charges, could spend 74 years and three months in prison. It was also previously said that Strauss-Kahn could face more than 20 years in prison if convicted.
On Monday, a court in New York decided to keep Strauss-Kahn in custody, refusing to release him on bail. He was charged with attempted rape, sexual assault and unlawful imprisonment. The IMF head himself did not admit guilt. Before that, Stross-Kahn’s lawyers said that the IMF head arrested on suspicion of rape may have an alibi.
On Sunday, a maid at the Sofitel hotel, who accused the IMF head of attempted rape, pointed to Dominique Strauss-Kahn during the identification procedure. The IMF press office said Monday that Strauss-Kahn had taken a room at the Sofitel hotel at his own expense.
Source: https://vz.ru/news/2011/5/17/491882.html