NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — A 60-year-old man who was being held in the jail ward at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue died of throat cancer on Thursday, becoming the fifth person known to have died in Department of Correction custody this year.
Ricky Howell was arrested on burglary charges in September and transferred to the hospital in February, according to court records.
At his arraignment, lawyers from the Legal Aid Society pleaded with the judge for his release, arguing his condition negated any flight risk or danger to the public.
“Mr. Howell is terminally ill; he has stage 4 cancer,” said Howell’s attorney at the time, according to SILive.com. “I don’t want to minimize what he did, and we’re still under the grace of the court ... but being locked up in a cage while going through terminal cancer; I don’t think that’s in the interest of justice.”
Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon successfully pushed for his imprisonment due to his prior arrests and other open criminal cases.
After Howell’s death Thursday, the LAS denounced prosecutors, judges and the DOC for working to ensure he lived out his last days in prison.
“The judges and prosecutors on Staten Island who vigorously fought to keep him jailed despite knowing full well his medical condition and imminent death, and that he posed no threat to public safety, is truly disgraceful, callous,and devoid of any human decency,” wrote the pro-bono legal group in a statement. “The Richmond County District Attorney’s Office's insistence of a prison sentence is equally disturbing, despite numerous letters documenting Mr. Howell’s deteriorative state from his doctors and other medical professionals.”
Last year, 19 people died in or shortly after leaving DOC custody, an increase from 16 dead in 2021.
The public knows five people have died in custody so far in 2023, but moves to limit transparency under Mayor Eric Adams have raised doubts about the scope of deaths in New York City prisons.
Adams and DOC Commissioner Louis Molina restricted a City Council oversight body’s access to video from prisons in January and abruptly stopped notifying the press of prisoners’ deaths at the end of May.
Steve Martin, a federally-appointed monitor tasked with investigating rampant abuse, neglect and violence at Rikers Island, accused Molina and the DOC of obstructing his reports, even going as far as to say it is possible the department has covered up deaths.
“Given recent concerns regarding the department’s lack of transparency and the accuracy of data provided, it is possible this number could be higher,” he said regarding deaths at the prison in a June report.
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