Ramon Rivera was already on Rikers Island facing burglary charges when he got into deeper trouble.
In May, the 51-year-old inmate kicked a correction officer and smacked her into a wall after his decompensating mental health landed him in the Bellevue Prison Ward.
Rivera was charged with assault for the incident. A second conviction could have added months to his 364-day burglary sentence, leaving him behind bars on Nov. 18 — the day he allegedly stabbed and killed three people in Manhattan.
But court transcripts obtained by the NBC New York I-Team showed that on Sept. 4, Rivera took a deal offered by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, pleading guilty to attempted assault and receiving a 90-day jail sentence.
Despite the second crime, Rivera did not serve any extra time.
The deal advocated by the assistant district attorney and approved by Judge Janet McDonnell in court that day made the second sentence of 90 days concurrent with his first sentence. By that time, he had already served seven months.
“I don’t anticipate this plea will change his expected release date which is October 17, 2024,” the ADA said, according to the transcripts.
“A plea offer to run concurrent instead of consecutive sentences was a tragic decision,” said Craig Rothfeld a criminologist and prison consultant with the firm Inside Outside Ltd.
Rothfeld said choosing consecutive sentences could have kept Rivera incarcerated another 60-90 days.
“The other tragic decision was made by the NYC Department of Corrections, when they awarded him his ‘good time,'” Rothfeld said.
Had the DOC revoked Rivera’s time off for good behavior, he might have remained jailed until Feb. 2025. Instead, he was released on Oct. 17, after serving two-thirds of his 364-day sentence.
The DOC did not respond to the I-Team’s specific questions about why they did not penalize Rivera for assaulting one of their correction officers.
In a statement, DOC spokesman Patrick Gallahue said “When it comes to discharge and sentences, the Department rules are set out in Correction Law, which have been in place for decades.”
Some prison reform advocates told the I-Team one reason the DOC may have avoided confronting the assault head-on is that their correction officer, Carol Garcia, was also charged in the assault, after being caught on surveillance video trying to kick Rivera back after he was restrained, according to the NYC Department of Investigation.
Officer Garcia pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to ten days of community service according to law enforcement.
“There is no excuse for this defendant or any correction officer to attempt to assault a person in custody,” said Jocelyn Strauber, the commissioner for the city’s Department of Investigations.
The Manhattan DA’s office did not comment on why they recommended a concurrent sentence for Rivera. But sources in the office told the I-Team that given the totality of the circumstances including the correction officer’s illegal conduct and lack of physical injuries, a 90 day concurrent sentence was an appropriate disposition.
The transcripts reviewed by the I-Team reflect that all parties and the judge were aware of Rivera’s severe mental illness. His defense attorney said in court that his client is a diagnosed schizophrenic who had been non-responsive to many questions about the case. Transcripts show the attorney said Rivera was vocal about what he called his “mental discontrol.”
Local criminologists agree about 20% of the prisoners on Rikers Island are dealing with severe mental illness.
Prosecutors, the judge and the DOC could not have known that Ramon Rivera would be accused of killing three people one month after being released, said Michael Jacobson, a former NYC correction and probation commissioner.
Jacobson currently serves on a commission created by the City Council to examine replacing Rikers island with smaller, borough-based jails. He says the concurrent sentences and apparent consistent lack of focus on Rivera’s diagnosis reflected in the I-Team’s review of court transcripts were missed opportunities.
“The bigger-picture problem, however, is that keeping prisoners with mental illness longer in a place like Rikers may only make them worse by the time they are eventually released. Our system is missing what other countries have, which is a secure detention system specifically for prisoners with mental illness,” Jacobson said.
