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Michael Avenatti moved to different jail after hitting ‘breaking point’
By Michael Kaplan
February 22, 2020 | 4:36pm
Michael Avenatti, who served time in the notorious 10 South unit of the Metropolitan Correctional Center while awaiting sentencing, complained about the terrible conditions – including teeth-chattering temperatures.
Michael Avenatti, who served time in the notorious 10 South unit of the Metropolitan Correctional Center while awaiting sentencing, complained about the terrible conditions – including teeth-chattering temperatures.
NY Post photo composite; Christopher Sadowski
On Feb. 14, disgraced lawyer Michael Avenatti was found guilty on all charges of trying to bilk $23.5 million from Nike, and now faces up to 42 years in prison. But there’s one thing for him to be happy about: He’s finally been moved out of the downtown Manhattan jail cell he despises.
The attorney, who represented porn star Stormy Daniels in a failed 2018 suit against Donald Trump, was arrested last March and charged with attempting to extort the shoe brand over illegally funneled payments to college basketball players.
In January, ahead of his trial, he was transferred from a California facility to the notorious 10 South — a jail deep inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center in TriBeCa that Avenatti’s Miami-based attorney Scott Srebnick described to The Post as “sheer dehumanization.”
In a January letter of protest, Srebnick complained that the temperature of the 8’-x-10’ cell was in the mid 40s and that his client was “forced to sleep with three blankets … [and] not permitted to shave.” In the summer the temperature reportedly becomes debilitatingly hot.
Avenatti was transferred to 5 South, a general population facility, on Thursday, after one of his defense attorneys, Danya Perry, wrote an appeal to MCC — saying Avenatti had reached a “breaking point.”
New York Post cover for Thursday, November 15, 2018 after Avenatti was arrested for assault.
New York Post cover for Thursday, November 15, 2018 after Avenatti was arrested for assault.
New York Post
“[Avenatti] was in a cell where everything he does is watched. He showered in view of cameras. He couldn’t control the lights [which reportedly never turn off],” Srebnick added of his client’s old 10 South cell. “There was no privacy.”
Avenatti’s not the only famous tenant who’s been made miserable by the conditions at 10 South. In 2017, the same cell housed Mexican drug cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, whose lawyers called the conditions “excessively punitive.”
Michael Lambert, who heads up a law firm that represented El Chapo, told The Post that the conditions of 10 South — a special housing unit that is primarily designed to hold terrorists and others who would face threats from the general jail population or be a threat themselves — are “nothing short of torture.”
“The air conditioner blows dirty air and puts out weird noises that make it difficult to sleep,” one of El Chapo’s lawyers, Mariel Colon Miró, told The Post. “There are no vending machines, no water bottles, no fresh air or sunlight. There are very small windows, but they have frosted glass, which blocks out the light.”
In a letter sent to the prison while El Chapo was there, she complained that he could “taste and see mold coming out of the faucet.”
Often characterized as a “SHU” (Special Housing Unit), 10 South consists of six solitary-confinement cells. According to Miro, each contains a sleeping pad on the floor, plus a toilet, a sink and a shower.
Drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was housed in the same cell and also complained.
Drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was housed in the same cell and also complained.
AP
One hour per day, Monday through Friday, Avenatti was escorted to a room characterized as a “solitary cage” — a cramped, dark space with a stationary bike and a TV. No time was spent outdoors. The exercise room, said Srebnick, “has a slat through which the wind blows.”
https://nypost.com/2020/02/22/michael-avenatti-moved-to-different-jail-after-hitting-breaking-point/amp/?__twitter_impression=true