Some inmates are again without heat at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center — where electricity and heat were out for a week earlier this year, a federal public defender said Friday.
Deirdre von Dornum, the attorney-in-charge of the Federal Defenders of New York, had just been in court for a lawsuit over the previous alleged “inhuman” conditions at the jail when she made the claim.
Von Dornum said she had “direct reports from inmates who had firsthand knowledge” that the heat was back out in three units of the Sunset Park jail, where she said more than 1,600 inmates are housed in 20 and 30 units.
“There’s freezing air coming out of the vents,” von Dornum told reporters, as temperatures outside remained at slightly above-freezing.
Von Dornum claims she contacted the Metropolitan Detention Center, which responded that the current temperatures were “within the temperature guidelines” at the federal lockup.
“If we need to, we will escalate this to the US government,” von Dornum told The Post.
The federal Bureau of Prisons told The Post on Friday: “Contrary to media reports, the heat at MDC Brooklyn is fully operational and the institution is operating normally.”
But a woman visiting an inmate at the jail Friday afternoon said it “was freezing in there.”
“I don’t know how you’d be able to survive everyday like that,” said the visitor, Shakena Willis, 37 of Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Von Dornum made the heat disclosure outside Brooklyn federal court after a hearing on the lawsuit that her organization brought against the Bureau of Prisons over the “humanitarian crisis” that left inmates at the jail without electricity or heat for a week.
The Federal Defenders of New York is suing the Bureau of Prisons, alleging that the inmates at the Metropolitan Detention Center were subjected to “inhumane” conditions that were in direct violation of their constitutional rights.
The jail went dark and frigid during some of the coldest days of the year after a Jan. 27 electrical fire caused a partial power outage at the facility, inmates and advocates say.
Judge Margo Brody said during the court hearing Friday that under the Sixth Amendment, the Federal Defenders “are not the party to bring this action” against the Bureau of Prisons.
“While the inmates have the right to bring their particular case [to court], the federal defenders don’t,” Brody said.
The Federal Defenders of New York said it plans on re-submitting an amended version of the complaint next week.
Only the names of two former inmates are named in the Federal Defenders’ current suit against BOP.
“The inmates don’t want to be listed by name because they can face retaliation and they can be punished,” von Dornum explained.
Additional reporting by Nick Fugallo
