Carlos Montero was arrested and taken to the notorious Rikers Island prison when he was 17. Seven years later he's still locked up, awaiting trial. His custody has already cost New York over $1 million and may be the city’s longest pretrial detention.
Montero was arrested in 2008 for allegedly taking part in a
robbery along with two buddies, Jairo Peralta and Diangelo
Enriquez. A Washington Heights crime resulted in the death of one
man, who, according to court papers cited by the New York Post,
was fatally stabbed by Peralta while being robbed of his jacket.
Enriquez meanwhile injured another man who tried to flee the
scene of the crime. Although witness reports had placed him at
the scene of the crime on October 23, Montero denies it and
maintains his innocence.
“I don’t have the heart to kill someone,’’ Montero told
the Post. He said prosecutors offered him a plea deal of 15 years
behind bars that he refused. “I wasn’t there. I know I could
sue, but no amount of money could get me justice for this. I just
want my freedom.”
According to state law, prisoners are supposed to get a trial
within 180 days. The law does not apply to murder cases, however.
Montero has spent six years and eight months in Rikers Island,
and after some 77 appearances in Manhattan Supreme Court he is
still incarcerated.
“I’m depressed in here. I just want to go home,’’ he
told the Post.
His court-appointed lawyer, Robert Jaffe, said he has attempted
to separate Montero's case from the other two suspects’, but his
appeal was denied. Jaffe has not even tried to ask the judge for
bail, because “there’s no point,” he said. “Because
it’s a murder case, he isn’t getting bail,” Jaffe added.
No justice. #KaliefBrowder#CarlosMontero
— lord flacko jobie (@jobie3moonz) 16 июня 2015
READ MORE: Man jailed at Rikers Island without charges for 3 years commits suicide
Montero said he heard about the recent suicide of Kalief Browder,
who was arrested for stealing a backpack and jailed in Rikers
Island for three years without charge. He was initially arrested
on his way home in 2010, after an unknown individual identified
Browder, then 16 years old, as the person who robbed him a few
weeks prior. Browder was charged with second-degree robbery and,
unable to post the $10,000 bail at the time of his arrest, was
placed in Rikers Island. His case never went to trial, and the
teenager languished in prison until the charges were dropped
without explanation in June 2013. His stay at the prison included
nearly two years of solitary confinement. Browder said he was
subject to endless assaults and beating from prison guards and
inmates. Rikers Island surveillance footage of two instances in
which he was assaulted (one by an officer and one by a large
group of inmates) were reportedly provided to The New Yorker.
Browder struggled with depression and attempted suicide several
times during and after his incarceration, according to magazine.
The 22-year-man eventually took his life at his family's home in
the Bronx on June 6.
Montero says suicide is not an option. “I don’t think about
killing myself because I love myself.”
“I still think I can get justice,” he added.
According to prominent civil rights and criminal defense lawyer
Ron Kuby, Montero's case is “gold medal-winning” in
terms of delay, the longest period of time in New York state he
ever heard of being about five years.
“It seems a very clear constitutional violation to hold
somebody for nearly seven years in pretrial detention without
trial,” he told the Post.
Meanwhile, the average annual cost of housing one inmate in NYC
in 2012 was $167,731, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office. Montero’s seven-year
pretrial detention has already cost the city over $1 million.