New photo shows maggot-infested food in MDC Brooklyn jail, where Diddy and Luigi Mangione are held

Yahoo

21-02-2025

A recent photo taken inside MDC Brooklyn, the federal jail that houses Luigi Mangione and Sean 'Diddy' Combs, shows what looks to be a maggot-infested meal served to an inmate over the President's Day weekend — evidence that a 'serious sanitation issue that threatens the health of our clients' sanitation persists at the notorious lock-up, according to inmate lawyers.
The gag-worthy snapshot, provided to the Daily News by the Federal Defenders of New York, shows potatoes stuffed with lumps of beans, each lump crawling with what appear to be tiny white maggots.
It's not the first time inmates have brought complaints about maggots infesting their meals at the Sunset Park jail.
In March 2024, one MDC inmate, Joseph Elias, complained through his attorney that he was served maggot-infested beans while he was locked up in the special housing unit, or SHU.
After Elias spoke out, the Bureau of Prisons told the federal prosecutors handling his case that jail staff found 'one bag from a particular manufacturer that showed the presence of weevils,' and that the staff had tossed all the beans from that manufacturer.
But Elias' lawyer, Michael Robotti, called the weevil explanation 'highly suspect,' especially since he found maggots in his meals four times, including after they supposedly got rid of the tainted food.
On April 4, the Federal Defenders catalogued similar complaints from eight other SHU inmates, as well as two inmates in another unit, that they were finding maggots in their sloppy joes, shredded chicken, black beans and chickpeas.
One inmate told his lawyer he 'will eat them because he does not want to go hungry and considers them to be 'protein' – tries not to look too closely or think too much about it, doesn't think it is going to change,' according to a court filing.
The photo provided by to The News was taken Sunday, Deirdre von Dornum of the Federal Defenders said.
'MDC assured us almost a year ago that it had thrown out all the infested food, including beans.This photo, taken on Sunday of a President's Day weekend, shows there is once again a serious sanitation issue that threatens the health of our clients,' she said.
Defense lawyer Sabrina Shroff called the infested food a regular occurrence, not a 'one-off,' despite the hopes of judges and attorneys last year. Defendants hoard and barter food behind bars, or rely on sandwiches from the visiting room vending machines to avoid meals that will make them sick, she said.
'Our clients are forced to eat on the margins — the white bread, the rice, food you can check to avoid bugs and vermin,' she said. 'Many hoard bread, as the potatoes are made with powder and over-watered. They give you 'shredded chicken' which they serve three days in a row. Each day they add in the leftover vegetable of the prior day and mix it into the chicken.
'Nothing about this is anywhere close to bearable — the humane standard is a pipe dream at MDC Brooklyn,' Shroff said.
Bureau of Prisons spokesman Benjamin O'Cone would not comment about specific complaints about maggots, citing 'privacy, safety, and security reasons,' and said that MDC Brooklyn 'provides nutritionally adequate meals, prepared and served in a manner that meets established Government health and safety codes.'
MDC has long been plagued with violence, serious understaffing, medical mistreatment, and grim living conditions. Two inmates were stabbed to death over a six-week period last summer.
In 2019, the jail lost power for eight days in the dead of winter, and in 2021, defense attorneys highlighted complaints of no water or hot food, spotty electricity and low staff levels.