More than 100 inmates who were released from New York City's notorious Rikers Island jail over COVID-19 concerns at the outset of the ...
More than 100 inmates who were released from New York City's notorious Rikers Island jail over COVID-19 concerns at the outset of the lockdown in late March have landed back behind bars for allegedly committing new crimes.
Some of the 110 inmates who regained their freedom amid the pandemic had multiple run-ins with the law over the past two months, accounting for 190 arrests, according to data from the New York City Police Department first obtained by The New York Post.
About a quarter of the arrests were for burglaries, which helps explain the 43 per cent jump in break-ins citywide over the past month.
Data show that some 110 inmates who were among the 1,500 inmates released in March from Rikers Island over COVID-19 fears have been re-arrested for new crimes
This chart shows that the jail's population between March 16-May 7 dropped to below 4,000 inmates
The vast majority of this new crop of burglaries have been reported in Manhattan.
A total of 1,500 inmates were freed in March alone, of whom at least 7 per cent have re-offended.
Latest data released by the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice indicate that between March 16-May 6, over 2,650 inmates have been released from jail, a quarter of whom faced charges stemming from violent felony offenses.
Iamunno allegedly blocked the victim's exit and demanded cash while threatening him with a knife.One of the former dwellers of Rikers Island who has recently found himself back in lockup was Jerard Iamunno, 36, who was arrested on Sunday night on suspicion of mugging a 59-year-old man at knifepoint at an ATM in Harlem.
Iamunno got away with the $20 that his victim had just withdrawn from the ATM, but was quickly picked up by police on charges of robbery and criminal possession of a weapon.
Six weeks earlier, Iamunno had been released from jail after pleading guilty to grand larceny and a drug-related offense stemming from two separate incidents.
A quarter of the 2,650 people who have been released from jail since mid-March faced violent felony charges
His record includes more than a dozen convictions, including for two felonies. Iamunno is now being held in jail on $10,000 bail.
During a press briefing in late April, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio said he was troubled by recidivism among inmates who have been released from jail over COVID-19 fears.
'I think it's unconscionable just on a human level that folks were shown mercy and this is what some of them have done,' he said on April 21. 'We’re going to keep, just buckling down on it, making sure there is close monitoring and supervision to the maximum extent possible and the NYPD is going to keep doing what they're doing.'
Public defenders have been filing motions with the courts, seeking the release of inmates amid the coronavirus outbreak, especially those who might be more susceptible to the illness due to their advanced age or pre-existing medical conditions.
According to the New York City Board of Corrections, as of May 8, Rikers Island had 370 confirmed cases of the coronavirus among inmates and 187 among staffers.
At least three inmates have succumbed to the disease since the beginning of the outbreak.
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