MDC Brooklyn: Visiting, Mail, Money and Legal Access

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

MDC Brooklyn at a glance

MDC Brooklyn is a federal jail, not a prison: two connected buildings at 80 29th Street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It holds men and women, most of them awaiting trial or sentencing in the federal courts of the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York, and held 1,266 people as of September 2026. It is the only federal lockup in New York City.

Official name	Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn
BOP code	BRO
Security level	Administrative; men and women
Population	1,266 (as of September 2026)
Visiting	Weekdays 12:00–3:00 p.m. and 5:00–7:30 p.m. · weekends 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. · pretrial and holdover: one hour a week · see visiting hours
Inmate mail	Inmate Name & Register Number · MDC Brooklyn · Metropolitan Detention Center · P.O. Box 329002 · Brooklyn, NY 11232
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	718-840-4200 · Fax 718-840-5005
Street address	80 29th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232 · Kings County
Judicial district	Eastern District of New York · also serves the Southern District of New York
BOP region	Northeast
Designated capacity	1,775
Housing	Two connected high-rise buildings · two-person cells (West) · dormitory-style cadre unit (East)
Special Housing Unit	Yes · the two top-floor units of the West Building
RDAP	No
UNICOR	No

Almost everyone inside is waiting for something — a bail ruling, a trial date, a sentencing, a transfer. The Bureau’s own fact sheet for this institution says it “primarily houses USMS prisoners subject to pending criminal charges, or who await sentencing following a conviction or plea.” The jail sits on the Brooklyn waterfront, in the Bureau’s Northeast Region; it became the city’s only federal lockup when the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan was shuttered in August 2021. Few federal institutions have been examined as often, and federal judges in two districts write about its conditions in sentencing opinions.

Is MDC Brooklyn a prison or a jail?

A jail, in everything but the Bureau’s vocabulary. The distinction decides whether a person can be made to work, how many visitors they may have, whether they can take a class, and whether the time is doing anything for them beyond passing.

Three other New York facilities carry confusable names. The Metropolitan Correctional Center at 150 Park Row in Manhattan — MCC New York — was the other federal jail serving these courts until the Justice Department ordered it closed in August 2021 after Jeffrey Epstein’s death there. It is no longer on the Bureau’s roster or in the August 2026 First Step Act guide’s list of institutions, and the Park Row building is empty, although the Bureau’s Consolidated Legal Center for New York, which sits inside MDC Brooklyn, still lists MCC New York among the institutions it covers. New York State runs its own prison system, and the federal Inmate Locator will not find a state prisoner; the city’s jails on Rikers Island are neither federal nor state. If the case is captioned United States v. and was brought in Brooklyn or Manhattan federal court, this is the right page; for the rest of the state, see federal prisons in New York.

Who is held at MDC Brooklyn?

MDC Brooklyn holds four groups under four sets of rules: pretrial detainees, holdovers, a small sentenced cadre and immigration detainees. Almost every practical question below turns on which group a person is in.

Status	Who that is	What changes
Pretrial	Held by order of a judicial officer for the Eastern or Southern District of New York, in U.S. Marshals Service custody under a memorandum of understanding with the Bureau	Visiting list restricted to documented immediate family. One hour of social visiting a week. Brown jumpsuit. No First Step Act assessment
Holdover	Convicted or sentenced but not yet moved to a designated institution	Same restricted visiting list as pretrial
Cadre	A small number designated to serve their sentence here, on their own floor in a dormitory-style unit in the East Building; many work outside the secure perimeter	Up to four friends or relatives beyond immediate family. Visiting 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on the cadre’s day. Green uniform
Immigration detainees	People held for Immigration and Customs Enforcement under an interagency agreement that began in June 2025	A civil process with no right to appointed counsel. ICE, not the Bureau, decides the case

The pretrial category is wider than families expect. Under 28 C.F.R. § 551.101 a pretrial inmate is “a person who is legally detained but for whom the Bureau of Prisons has not received notification of conviction,” so a guilty plea does not end pretrial status — official notice of it does. Someone can plead in March and still be carried as pretrial in May, with the visiting restrictions and program exclusions that go with it.

The March 2025 PREA audit recorded that this facility holds people for the U.S. Marshals Service and ticked no box for Immigration and Customs Enforcement; ICE began housing detainees here in June 2025. Representative Dan Goldman, whose district includes the jail, was refused entry repeatedly that summer and finally inspected the immigration units on February 18, 2026. ICE officials told him, as THE CITY reported, that 191 people were held that afternoon in two cell blocks with a combined capacity of 248, and his letter records that the Bureau “confirmed with my office that the agreement was extended for an additional six months and that a second unit will now be utilized to house detainees.” His office had been told of delayed medical visits and medication, legal calls limited or held in non-private space, detainees produced late to hearings, and no timely interpreters. Against a population of 1,266 that month, about one person in seven in the building was an ICE detainee.

What is the security level at MDC Brooklyn?

MDC Brooklyn is an administrative-security institution. In the Bureau’s classification that is a mission, not a rung on a ladder: an administrative institution takes people at every security level because it exists to hold them for a court, and most of the people inside have not been scored for designation at all. A first-time wire-fraud defendant and a racketeering defendant can be on the same floor.

The physical plant is two high-rise buildings joined underground, which the Inspector General described in September 2019 as “the largest federal Metropolitan Detention Center in the country.” The West Building opened in November 1999, is rated for 1,753 men and holds them in 18 housing units across six floors, the two units on the top floor being Special Housing. The East Building opened in January 1994, is rated for 125 women as configured, and now also holds the designated cadre. Staff call the tunnel between them “the link.” There is no yard: recreation happens on caged decks with outdoor exposure, and the OIG found each unit, which can hold more than 100 people, is supervised by one correctional officer. The Bureau’s 2025 designations fact sheet places sentenced people in a “dormitory style” unit in the East Building and most people in “two-person, locking cells” in the West Building.

The Special Housing Unit runs at 23 hours a day in cell with one hour of outdoor recreation. Visits there are non-contact, on the day the person’s assigned floor would normally visit, and attorney visits are conducted with the client in restraints throughout, removed only if documents have to be signed. The 2017 supplement notes a consequence of the mission that shapes the whole building: “Due to the unique mission of MDC Brooklyn, it is not uncommon to house inmates who have separatee(s) inside the institution” — co-defendants and cooperators under one roof, which is why movement is controlled floor by floor.

Can the detention order be reopened or reviewed?

Yes. A detention order can be reopened, reviewed by the district judge or appealed, and it is the most consequential question on this page. The Bureau of Prisons does not decide who is held at MDC Brooklyn; a judicial officer ordered each detention under 18 U.S.C. § 3142(e)(1), on a finding “that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the appearance of the person as required and the safety of any other person and the community.” That is a finding on a record made at one hearing, often within days of arrest.

Reopening. The last sentence of § 3142(f) says the hearing “may be reopened, before or after a determination by the judicial officer, at any time before trial if the judicial officer finds that information exists that was not known to the movant at the time of the hearing and that has a material bearing on the issue whether there are conditions of release that will reasonably assure the appearance of such person as required and the safety of any other person and the community.” Both halves have to be satisfied: the information was not known then, and it bears on conditions. A relative who has since agreed to serve as third-party custodian, a residential treatment placement that has since been offered, a lease or a job that now exists, a diagnosis that has now been made — that is the shape of a reopening motion. Disagreement with the first ruling is not.

Review by the district judge. Detention in Brooklyn and Manhattan is usually ordered by a magistrate judge. Section 3145(b) allows a person so detained to “file, with the court having original jurisdiction over the offense, a motion for revocation or amendment of the order,” and provides that the motion “shall be determined promptly.” In this circuit that is a fresh look, not deference. In United States v. Leon, 766 F.2d 77, 80 (2d Cir. 1985), the Second Circuit held that “a district court should fully reconsider a magistrate’s denial of bail and in ruling on a motion for revocation or amendment of a detention order should not simply defer to the judgment of the magistrate, but reach its own independent conclusion.” Leon itself left the defendant detained, on evidence that he had threatened two police officers; the value of the case is the standard it sets, not its result.

Appeal. Section 3145(c) sends an appeal from a detention order, or from an order refusing to revoke or amend one, to the court of appeals under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and it too “shall be determined promptly.” Very few pretrial rulings can be taken up immediately; this is one. Separately, § 3142(i) allows temporary release “necessary for preparation of the person’s defense or for another compelling reason.”

When the conditions here are the argument

In United States v. Chavez, No. 22-CR-303 (JMF), 2024 WL 50233 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 4, 2024), Judge Jesse Furman held that conditions at the MDC are “exceptional reasons” under § 3145(c) why pre-sentence detention “would not be appropriate” for most defendants who present no risk of flight or danger, and continued a convicted narcotics defendant’s bail through sentencing despite the mandatory-detention rule in § 3143(a)(2). The findings behind it: as of November 2023 only 200 of 301 authorized non-supervisory correctional officer posts were filled — “about 55% of full correctional officer staffing level” — against a population of 1,611, a ratio the court called “ten to one.” Since June 2019 the institution had been run by eight wardens and acting wardens.

In United States v. Colucci, No. 23-CR-417 (GRB), 2024 WL 3643857 (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 5, 2024), Judge Gary Brown built the conditions into the sentence itself. He imposed nine months on a 74-year-old tax defendant, below an advisory range of 18 to 24 months, and ordered that “if the BOP opts to designate MDC as the relevant facility, then the imposed term of imprisonment will be vacated and, in its place, the defendant shall serve nine months of home incarceration with electronic monitoring.” A court cannot pick a prison — 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) makes designation the Bureau’s and says it “is not reviewable by any court” — so he wrote the alternative into the judgment, resting on the disparity factor at § 3553(a)(6): “A sentence served at MDC is materially different and necessarily disparate from one served elsewhere.” The Bureau confirmed within weeks that Colucci would not be designated here.

Does time at MDC Brooklyn count toward a sentence?

The days count. Pretrial programming does not.

On the days: 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b) entitles a defendant to credit for time in official detention before the sentence commences, provided that time “has not been credited against another sentence.” Months on 29th Street waiting for trial are ordinarily credited, but the judge does not compute them. In United States v. Wilson, 503 U.S. 329 (1992), the Supreme Court held that § 3585(b) does not authorize a district court to award that credit at sentencing: the Attorney General, acting through the Bureau of Prisons, computes it once the defendant begins serving, and prisoners may seek administrative review of the computation and then review in court. Read the computation against the judgment the day it arrives; our page on challenging a Bureau sentence computation sets out the route, which begins with the administrative remedy process.

On the programming: First Step Act earned time credits do not accrue in pretrial status, and this institution’s own Attorney Guide says so in eight words — “Pretrial inmates will not be assessed for FSA.” The statute excludes programs completed “during official detention prior to the date that the prisoner’s sentence commences under section 3585(a)” (18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(B)(ii)). Set that against the 2025 PREA audit’s finding that the average length of stay here is 411 days. Someone who spends fourteen months at MDC Brooklyn awaiting trial and completes every class the building offers arrives at their designated prison with the credit balance they started with: nothing. For pretrial time, what shortens the wait is not signing up for something here; it is getting designated, on a clean record, to a prison that runs the programs the sentence will need.

For a holdover who has been sentenced, the rule changes on September 30, 2026. Under the Bureau’s First Step Act time-credit rules, Program Statement 5410.01 (2023), earning starts on arrival at, or voluntary surrender to, the institution designated for the sentence. An interim final rule published August 31, 2026, deletes that arrival clause from the regulation the program statement quotes, 28 C.F.R. § 523.42(a), effective September 30, so credits begin “after the inmate’s term of imprisonment commences” (91 Fed. Reg. 55740); under 18 U.S.C. § 3585(a), a sentence commences when the defendant “is received in custody awaiting transportation to” the facility where it will be served. The Bureau says the change “allows inmates awaiting transportation to their designated facilities to begin FSA-approved programming,” but “does not mean that every eligible inmate will automatically begin earning Time Credits immediately after their sentence is imposed.”

Where does someone go after MDC Brooklyn?

To an institution chosen in Grand Prairie, Texas, by the Designation and Sentence Computation Center, from paperwork the sentencing court generates; staff at MDC Brooklyn do not pick it. The Bureau’s 2025 designations fact sheet for this jail sets out the chain with unusual precision, and every link is a place where a lawyer can act:

• Chambers sends the Judgment in a Criminal Case and the Statement of Reasons to the U.S. Probation Office, “typically via email.”
• Probation uploads those documents and the presentence report into a system the fact sheet names: CAPTURE.
• CAPTURE routes the file to the U.S. Marshals Service, which reviews it, adds its own documentation and formally requests a designation.
• “Only once these steps are completed can the BOP begin the designations and classification process.”

Two things follow. Delay usually lives in the first two steps rather than at the Bureau, so chasing the Designation Center about a file the Marshals have not submitted accomplishes nothing. And the documents that decide security points and program eligibility are fixed before the request is made: a disputed presentence finding, a judicial recommendation to a named institution, a documented medical need all have to be in the record at sentencing. Distance and points follow the Bureau’s national designation rules; a Public Safety Factor trumps the point total outright, so the argument that pays is almost always about the factor rather than the points. Our guides to the intake process and federal prison transfers cover what happens on either side of it.

Who are the notable inmates at MDC Brooklyn?

The Bureau’s Inmate Locator places Luigi Mangione at MDC Brooklyn; Sean Combs, Ghislaine Maxwell and Sam Bankman-Fried, all held here before sentencing, are now at other institutions. Many lists online still name people who have left; the table gives each register number, so you can check the Locator yourself.

Name	Register number	Where the Locator puts them
Luigi Mangione	52503-511	Held at MDC Brooklyn. Projected release “UNKNOWN,” the Locator’s marker for a person awaiting trial
Sean Combs	37452-054	Former — now at FCI Fort Dix, New Jersey; projected release February 5, 2028
Ghislaine Maxwell	02879-509	Former — now at FPC Bryan, Texas; projected release July 17, 2037
Sam Bankman-Fried	37244-510	Former — now at FCI Lompoc II, California; projected release May 3, 2044
Mamdouh Mahmud Salim	42426-054	Former — now at USP Florence ADMAX, serving life. In 2000 he blinded an MDC Brooklyn officer, Louis Pepe, in an attack during pretrial detention here
Ronell Wilson	71460-053	Former — now at MCFP Springfield, Missouri, serving life. His case produced the Inspector General’s 2015 report on this jail
Al Sharpton	21458-069	Former — released from MDC Brooklyn on August 17, 2001

Linda Weston, the Philadelphia woman serving life for imprisoning disabled adults, is not held here; Bureau records place her at FMC Carswell in Texas under register number 68897-066. Vincent Asaro, the Bonanno figure acquitted in the Lufthansa heist case, is not a current inmate either; he was released on April 20, 2020, from MCFP Springfield rather than from Brooklyn.

The Locator shows no record for Nicolás Maduro, whom NPR and The Guardian report as held here awaiting trial after his capture on January 3, 2026. It does list pretrial detainees, as Mangione’s entry shows, so pretrial status does not explain the absence. It is a Bureau database, not a court docket, and a blank result does not mean a person is not in the building.

How do I find someone at MDC Brooklyn?

Search the Bureau’s free Inmate Locator by name, or by the eight-digit register number if you have it. It shows the facility as “Brooklyn MDC” and, for sentenced people, a projected release date; for someone awaiting trial that date reads “UNKNOWN.”

There is a gap specific to a jail. In the first hours and sometimes the first days after an arrest, a person is in U.S. Marshals Service custody and has not been booked into the Bureau’s system, so the Locator returns nothing. The Attorney Guide sets Receiving and Discharge windows for pretrial arrivals at 8:00 a.m. on weekends and 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on weekdays; Receiving and Discharge and Inmate Systems answer at 718-840-5000. Until intake happens, the office to ask is the Marshals Service for the district, not the Bureau. Our guide to how register numbers work explains where the number comes from and when it appears.

How do I write to someone at MDC Brooklyn?

Letters to someone at MDC Brooklyn go to P.O. Box 329002, not to the 29th Street building, and the committed name and register number must be on the first line or the mail is returned.

Purpose	Address
Letters and parcels for someone inside	Inmate Name & Register Number MDC Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center P.O. Box 329002 Brooklyn, NY 11232
Staff mail, and prescription eyeglasses	Staff Name MDC Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center P.O. Box 329001 Brooklyn, NY 11232
Freight and non-USPS parcels	Staff Name MDC Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center Attn: Warehouse 80 29th Street Brooklyn, NY 11232

The staff-mail box, 329001, is not the inmate address; mail sent there does not reach the mail room.

Ordinary mail here is handled more harshly than at most institutions. Under the November 2025 Attorney Guide, “[a]ll general correspondence will be photocopied, and the inmate will only be provided the photocopy.” Card stock is rejected outright; a greeting card is photocopied and the copy delivered. Anything with glitter, stickers, lipstick, crayon or marker is rejected, as is anything stained, oily or scented, and envelopes and paper must be white. Send photographs, which are ordinarily approved, and write in ink.

Legal mail is opened in front of the addressee and not read only if the envelope identifies the sender as an attorney and carries “SPECIAL MAIL — OPEN ONLY IN THE PRESENCE OF THE INMATE.” The Attorney Guide is blunt about a common failure: “The use of the title ‘Esquire’ without additional indication of the sender’s occupation does not establish the bearer as an attorney.” See the Bureau’s correspondence rules, attorney-client communication in the Bureau of Prisons and writing to someone in federal prison. Inmates may not send or receive faxes at all.

One instruction on the Bureau’s facility page for MDC Brooklyn exists nowhere else in the system. Under “How to send things here,” the Bureau writes: “Defense attorneys who wish to convey prescription glasses to MDC Brooklyn detainees may send the prescription glasses, along with a self-addressed return packaging, to MDC Brooklyn Health Services Administrator, P.O. Box 329001, Brooklyn, New York 11232. Health Services staff will inspect the prescription glasses and ensure they are appropriate for the correctional environment (not diamond encrusted, etc.), and then provide the prescription glasses to the detainee.” For a client who cannot read discovery without glasses, that route runs through the staff box, not the inmate box.

How do I send money to someone at MDC Brooklyn?

Money for someone at MDC Brooklyn goes to the Bureau’s national lockbox in Iowa or through Western Union or MoneyGram, never to the jail. All three routes need the committed name and eight-digit register number exactly as the Bureau holds them.

Route	Where it goes	How fast it posts
Postal money order or cashier’s check	Federal Bureau of Prisons Committed Name Eight-Digit Register Number Post Office Box 474701 Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001	U.S. postal money orders post without a hold; non-postal money orders and non-government checks carry an automatic 15-day hold
Western Union Quick Collect	Code city FBOP, DC	Two to four hours if sent between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Eastern; otherwise by 7:00 a.m. next morning
MoneyGram Express Payment	Receive code 7932, company name Federal Bureau of Prisons, Washington, DC. Up to $300 online	Same windows as Western Union

Sources: the MDC Brooklyn Admission and Orientation Handbook (2021) and the MDC Brooklyn Attorney Guide (2025).

Cash and personal checks are not accepted. Our guide to sending money to a federal prisoner compares the routes and their fees — but read the commissary section below first, because the ceiling on what money can buy here is very low.

What are the visiting hours at MDC Brooklyn?

Social visiting runs Monday to Friday, 12:00 to 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 to 7:30 p.m., and 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on weekends. Three other rules decide whether a family gets in.

First, a visit is one hour a week, on one fixed day, and the day belongs to the housing unit: “For pretrial and holdover inmates, approved social visitors may visit for one hour per week at the time designated for that inmate’s housing unit,” says the visiting supplement, Institution Supplement BRO 5267.09, issued May 2, 2017. Cadre inmates may use the whole 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. block on their day.

Second, an odd/even system keyed to the fifth digit of the register number decides whether that hour falls in the afternoon or the evening. In even-numbered months — February, April, June, August, October and December — people whose fifth digit is even visit in the afternoon and those whose fifth digit is odd visit in the evening; in odd-numbered months it reverses. The slot flips every month, so a family that learns “Thursday evenings” in September will find it is Thursday afternoons in October.

Third, the day itself is assigned by floor, and the Bureau’s two published documents do not agree about which floor visits when.

Day	East Building	West Building — 2021 handbook	West Building — 2017 supplement
Sunday	Female unit	Male cadre	Male cadre
Monday	Legal only	6th floor — units 61, 62, 63	6th floor
Tuesday	Legal only	7th floor — units 71, 72, 73	7th floor
Wednesday	Female unit (afternoon)	5th floor — units 51, 52, 53	8th floor
Thursday	Legal only	4th floor — units 41, 42, 43	4th floor
Friday	Legal only	8th floor — units 81, 82, 84	5th floor and male cadre (afternoon)
Saturday	Female unit	Male cadre	Male cadre

The 2021 handbook is the newer document and controls where the two differ, but the supplement it sits under has not been reissued since 2017, and neither is recent enough to travel on. The person inside knows the day; the institution will not tell a visitor. Call 718-840-4200 before you buy a ticket.

Who can visit, and how to get on the list

• For pretrial and holdover inmates, only documented immediate family may go on the list: mother, father, stepparent, foster parent, brother, sister, spouse, children. A partner who lived with the person and has no legal spouse may be approved on a joint lease, a child’s birth certificate or a shared address on a license.
• Common-law marriage is not recognized in New York, and the supplement draws the consequence: a common-law relationship formed in New York State is not treated as immediate family here.
• The list is capped at eight names, with two more after six months of clear conduct, and can be amended by written request every 90 days. Four social visitors at a time; a child small enough to stay on an adult’s lap throughout does not count. One inmate at a time unless the inmates are immediate family, and one social visit a day.
• Cadre inmates may add up to four other relatives or friends after a background check. Visitors 16 and over need valid photo identification; under-16s must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

What visitors can wear and bring

Processing starts 30 minutes before visiting hours and stops one hour before they end; no one is admitted after 6:30 p.m. on a weekday or 2:00 p.m. on a weekend. Phones, watches, keys, wallets and reading matter go in a lobby locker. You may carry in one clear plastic container no larger than four by seven inches, up to $20 in one- and five-dollar bills and coins for the vending machines, two diapers, one small receiving blanket and one bottle of formula. The 2017 supplement allowed $30; the 2021 handbook and the 2025 Attorney Guide both say $20, so bring $20. Inmates may not touch the vending machines, and nothing may be handed to an inmate.

Prohibited: anything sleeveless, see-through, low-cut or holed; halter, tube, crop and backless tops; spandex, Lycra, tight yoga pants or jeggings; skirts, dresses or shorts shorter than three inches above the knee, slits included; hats, visors, scarves, sunglasses and long hair picks, except religious headwear; overcoats, parkas and puffy vests, though blazers and cardigans are allowed; sweatpants and hooded shirts; open-toe, sandal or wheeled shoes; and khaki, tan, beige, brown, orange or green military-type clothing. Under the Bureau’s rules for searching visitors, screening is by walk-through detector, hand-held detector and ion spectrometry testing, at random and on reasonable suspicion; a confirmed positive ends the visit before it starts, and the visitor is given form BP-A0732, which explains the appeal. Bring documentation of any surgical implant. See searches, shakedowns and contraband, the Bureau’s visiting regulations, and our guide to federal prison visitation for the national rules.

Getting there

The jail is at 80 29th Street, between Second and Third Avenues in Sunset Park, a block from the Gowanus Expressway. The Bureau’s own directions, unchanged since 2017, are the R train to 25th Street and a short walk south and west. Driving, take the 39th Street exit from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway — the 2021 handbook gives the 38th Street exit westbound — and come north on Third Avenue. Street parking is metered and competes with container-terminal traffic; leave time.

How does a lawyer reach a client at MDC Brooklyn?

A lawyer reaches a client at MDC Brooklyn by legal visit, by a legal call or video conference booked through the Federal Defenders, or by legal mail, under rules more generous than at most federal institutions. Under 28 C.F.R. § 551.117(a) the warden of a pretrial facility must “provide the opportunity for pretrial inmate-attorney visits on a seven-days-a-week basis,” and under § 543.13(c) must “make every effort to arrange for a visit when prior notification is not practical.” Those two rules underpin everything below; quote them in a letter when access breaks down.

MDC Brooklyn is also one of ten institutions the Bureau treats as designated pretrial detention facilities. Its Pretrial Detention Legal Access Handbook, which this facility publishes in twenty-five languages, names them: MDC Brooklyn, MCC Chicago, MDC Guaynabo, FDC Honolulu, FDC Houston, MDC Los Angeles, FDC Miami, FDC Philadelphia, FDC SeaTac and MCC San Diego. Brooklyn is named in four of that handbook’s facility-specific entries — a virtual-visit rule and a legal-call rule for Brooklyn alone, its own electronic-discovery regime, and a Special Housing rule it shares with Philadelphia and Chicago — more than any other institution on the list.

Legal visits and the Federal Defenders booking system

Legal visiting runs Monday to Friday 8:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., and 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on weekends and on federal holidays. Visits inside those hours need no appointment, and 8:00 a.m. to noon on weekdays is reserved: exclusive attorney hours with no social visiting at all. Anything outside them is a special legal visit, requested from the Legal Department (718-840-4200, ext. 4248) by email to BRO-LegalVisit-S@bop.gov with two business days’ notice. There are eight private attorney rooms off the main visiting area in the West Building and seven in the East, first come first served, and counsel may ask for up to three clients at a time during the exclusive hours.

Two provisions exist only here. The Bureau’s pretrial handbook states: “If you are housed at MDC Brooklyn, your attorney can schedule a virtual legal visit with the Eastern District Federal Defenders Office who will provide the schedule to the facility,” and separately that a scheduled legal call is booked through the same office. The Attorney Guide gives the mechanism: counsel who cannot wait for a client to call “must visit the inmate in person or contact the inmate by letter, or schedule a call via the EDNY Federal Defenders Office via online booking system,” the MDC legal-call booking page. The Federal Defenders, not the Bureau, run the daily calendar of legal calls and video conferences; counsel who go through the unit team instead lose time.

Separately, the pretrial housing units have direct unmonitored phones. The Attorney Guide: “Pretrial inmates have access to unmonitored telephones in the housing units and can call directly to the Federal Public Defender’s Office of the Southern and Eastern District free of charge.” The Inspector General recorded the limit in 2019: “Only inmates represented by the Federal Defenders of New York are allowed to use these unmonitored phones.” A privately retained lawyer’s client uses the recorded inmate telephone, or asks the Unit Team in writing on form BP-A0148 for an unmonitored legal call, granted only on a showing that mail, visits and ordinary calls will not do. Email is not an alternative: TRULINCS messages to an attorney are expressly not privileged.

Discovery, the law library and the presentence report

Nothing passes across the table: “Attorneys and their legal representatives are prohibited from dispensing any material directly to inmates.” Documents go into the legal mail drop box in the front lobby, emptied by the following business day, in an envelope carrying the attorney’s name, words identifying the sender as an attorney, the client’s name and register number, and the special-mail legend. Couriers are slower here than the Postal Service, because their parcels go to the warehouse rather than the mail room. A personal laptop may come in on a signed agreement form, but no power cord.

Electronic discovery runs on a two-track rule the pretrial handbook sets out for this facility by name. Counsel submits the media to the Legal Department with a cover letter giving the item count and confirming the contents are discovery in the client’s own case. Once approved, ordinary discovery goes to the housing unit and lives in the locker beside the bed. Protected or sensitive discovery does not: it stays in the law library in the Education Department, in an assigned locker whose combination the client holds, and “[y]ou may visit the Law Library to review protected or sensitive materials once per week for 90 minutes.” Where the Bureau’s machines cannot read the format and trial is close, counsel can seek a court order for a discovery laptop, kept in the visiting-room officer’s station with its network disabled and used in the visiting room on weekdays, 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

There are two law libraries, one in each building, and a basic one in Special Housing. Access is one day a week per floor — “[b]ecause MDC Brooklyn is a high-rise building, each floor is allowed access to the law library one day per week because many of the inmates must be separated from each other at all times for security purposes.” Extra time for someone proceeding pro se or facing an imminent deadline is granted on Fridays; standby counsel should send the Legal Department the order establishing pro se status. The electronic law library is also on the unit workstations.

One window closes and never reopens. A person awaiting sentencing may possess and review their own presentence report, and the Unit Team will hold it between sessions. After sentencing, possessing a copy is prohibited across the Bureau and can draw an incident report. Everything that needs correcting in that document has to be read and raised while the client is still unsentenced and still allowed to hold it.

How do phone calls and email work at MDC Brooklyn?

Calls from MDC Brooklyn go one way: the person inside places them, to numbers on an approved list capped at 30, using a nine-digit access code and a voice recording made at intake. Under the Bureau’s telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026, the national allowance is 510 minutes a calendar month: 300 free to anyone eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives, and 210 more that anyone who uses up the first 300, eligible or not, may buy. A single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes, at least 30 minutes must pass between completed calls, and the monthly limit does not apply to unmonitored legal calls. The extra 100 minutes the 2008 policy allowed in November and December ended when that policy was rescinded; there is no holiday allowance anymore. Third-party calls, call forwarding, credit-card calls and 1-800, 1-888, 1-900 and 1-976 numbers are blocked. Every call on the inmate telephone system is recorded and monitored, attorneys included — which is why the unmonitored pretrial phones described above exist. Our guide to federal inmate phone calls covers costs.

Electronic messaging here is TRULINCS, which the family sees as CorrLinks: text only, with a per-minute charge. The same terminal is how a person here submits a sick-call request and files an administrative remedy, so the system that carries messages home also carries medical requests. Our page on CorrLinks and TRULINCS covers accounts and costs. For a death or serious illness in the immediate family, call 718-840-4200 and ask for the chaplain.

What can people buy at the MDC Brooklyn commissary?

People at MDC Brooklyn can buy far less than at a prison, because the jail’s local spending limit sits well below the Bureau’s national ceiling. The Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026, raised that ceiling from $360 to $460 a month. This jail’s own documents set local limits, and they do not agree with each other:

Document	Date	Limit it states
MDC Brooklyn commissary order form	2020	“THE SPENDING LIMIT IS $160.00 PER SHOP”; stamps, copy cards and over-the-counter medications exempt
MDC Brooklyn A&O handbook	2021	“The spending limit is $150.00, not including stamps”; each housing unit shops once every two weeks
PS 4500.13, national ceiling	2026	$460 a month

A local limit below the national ceiling is lawful. But the two local figures were printed six and five years ago and cannot both be current, and $150 or $160 every two weeks is roughly a third of what the same money buys at a sentenced institution. Families who wire in several hundred dollars a month are funding an account that cannot spend it. Ask the person inside what limit is posted on their unit board.

A missed deadline costs two weeks of shopping: “[a]ny shopping list not submitted in time for the 7:00 a.m. pick up will not be picked up at a later time or processed.” The commissary list itself shows what daily life costs: a radio with headphones $15.60, a Casio watch $40.30, New Balance sneakers $54.60, and a copy card good for 50 copies $6.50 — the currency of anyone doing their own legal work. For the rules that apply system-wide, see our page on the federal prison commissary.

What programs are available at MDC Brooklyn?

MDC Brooklyn offers Drug Education, the non-residential drug treatment program and a list of approved classes, but no Residential Drug Abuse Program, no UNICOR, no apprenticeship track and no vocational training beyond what Education offers. The institution does not appear on the RDAP locations list inside the Bureau’s August 2026 approved-programs guide, which totals 57 programs at 50 locations; the Bureau’s drug treatment program rules explain how RDAP works where it runs.

The guide’s program-detail pages never mention MDC Brooklyn; the word “Brooklyn” appears in the document only in the institutions-by-region list, so what is known about approved programs here comes from the programs-by-institution grid. That grid marks this institution for 18 evidence-based recidivism reduction programs — among them anger management, basic cognitive skills, criminal thinking, the Bureau literacy program, English as a second language, parenting, Threshold, Seeking Safety, non-residential drug treatment and post-secondary education — and about thirty productive activities.

Pretrial detainees are exempt from the literacy program and from Admission and Orientation, cannot be required to work, and are not assessed for First Step Act credits. Approval in a national guide is not delivery on a floor, and the only way to learn what is meeting this month is to ask the Unit Team in writing.

One service is more substantial than the program list suggests. The Attorney Guide records that “[t]he BOP has designated MDC Brooklyn as a forensic study facility (psychiatric examinations are conducted by BOP forensic psychologists), but it is not the sole forensic facility for Southern and Eastern District of New York inmates.” Counsel who wants an independent expert to examine a client here needs a court order, the Warden’s approval through the Legal Department, a cleared background check for the expert, and the client’s voluntary participation — staff may not compel attendance.

What is daily life like at MDC Brooklyn?

Days at MDC Brooklyn run on the housing unit, from cells opening at 6:00 a.m. to the 9:30 p.m. accountability check.

	Weekdays	Weekends and holidays
Cells open	6:00 a.m.; the unit is secured after a 9:30 p.m. accountability check
Beds made by	7:30 a.m.
Uniform required	7:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.	—
Meals on the unit	Breakfast 6:00 a.m.; lunch 11:00 a.m.; dinner after the 4:00 p.m. count	Breakfast 7:00 a.m.; brunch after the 10:00 a.m. count; dinner after the 4:00 p.m. count
Telephones	6:00 a.m. – 11:30 p.m., access normally limited 7:30–10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. until the 4:00 p.m. count clears	6:00 a.m. – 11:30 p.m.
Counts	4:00 p.m.	10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.

Sources: the MDC Brooklyn Admission and Orientation Handbook (2021) and the Inspector General’s Report 19-04 (2019). A jail’s day moves with its lockdowns; read this as the shape of one, not a timetable.

Medical screening starts fast; routine care is slower. Everyone arriving goes to an intake unit for about a week and is screened by a clinician “generally within 24-48 hours,” with a full physical within about 30 days. The scale is the problem: the Attorney Guide records that “[t]he Health Services Department screens over 200-300 newly arrived inmates weekly.” After that, non-emergency care is requested through TRULINCS and charged at a $2.00 co-pay unless the person is indigent, and medication is delivered to the unit twice a day at pill line and insulin line.

What do inspectors say about conditions at MDC Brooklyn?

Inspectors have documented heating failures, abuse of detainees, a dangerous housing placement and chronic understaffing at MDC Brooklyn. Most Bureau prisons have never been inspected by the Justice Department’s Inspector General at all. This one has a named inspection report of its own, two reports on the treatment of people held here after September 11, an evaluation of one of its housing units, and an investigation into a death in its custody.

The 2019 power outage, and what the record says

An electrical fire on Sunday, January 27, 2019, caused a partial power outage in the West Building that lasted a full week, until Sunday, February 3. New York was in a polar vortex; the low on January 31 was 2 degrees Fahrenheit. The outage was widely reported as a week without heat in the cold.

The Inspector General’s report, Review and Inspection of Metropolitan Detention Center Brooklyn Facilities Issues and Related Impacts on Inmates (E&I Report 19-04, September 2019), traced the heating failure to a different cause. “We found that during the power outage there were significant heating issues at MDC Brooklyn. These heating issues were unrelated to the fire and subsequent power outage, which did not affect MDC Brooklyn’s heating systems.” The outage took out lighting, outlets, computers and phones. The heating failure was separate and already there: the coldest temperature inspectors could document, 59 degrees against a Bureau winter target of 68, was recorded in the West Building a week before the fire, while at other times parts of the same building ran above 80. The jail had never installed a building management system, and staff were measuring temperatures by a method the OIG called unreliable, so the report could not “state with reasonable assurance how many inmate housing areas experienced temperatures at or below the BOP target of 68 degrees or for how long.” Cold-weather clothing such as thermal underwear and sweat suits, the inspectors noted, “are not standard issue at MDC Brooklyn.”

Two findings matter to lawyers. The institution canceled legal and social visiting for the whole complex for the week and told the courts, counsel, families and Congress neither adequately nor in time; its contingency plans said nothing about alerting external stakeholders to a disruption affecting access to counsel. The one channel that stayed open was the unmonitored housing-unit line to the Federal Defenders of New York. Nine recommendations followed, and the recommendation to fix the heating plant was still listed as not closed in the Inspector General’s open-recommendations report as of June 30, 2024 — four years and nine months later. The civil case ended in money: Scott v. United States, No. 19-cv-1075 (E.D.N.Y.), settled in August 2023 for approximately $10 million, paying $8,750 each to almost 1,000 claimants, a further $8,750 to 69 people with untreated medical conditions, and $2,500 each to about 554 who filed late.

The September 11 reports and the Special Programs Unit

In June 2003 the Inspector General published a 198-page review of the treatment of 762 people held on immigration charges after the September 11 attacks. Chapter 7 was about this building, and concluded that conditions here “were excessively restrictive and unduly harsh”: inadequate access to counsel, lockdown for at least 23 hours a day, and cells illuminated 24 hours a day. A second report that December, on abuse at this facility alone, substantiated allegations that staff physically and verbally abused detainees and recommended disciplinary action against ten current employees. One finding belongs in every defense lawyer’s file: staff “not only videotaped the detainees’ movements when taken from their cells to visit with their attorneys, they also recorded detainees’ visits with their attorneys using video cameras set up on tripods outside the attorney visiting rooms. In total, we found more than 40 examples of staff videotaping detainees’ attorney visits.” The regulation that forbids it, 28 C.F.R. § 543.13(e) — “Staff may not subject visits between an attorney and an inmate to auditory supervision” — is quoted in that report and reproduced in this jail’s own November 2025 Attorney Guide. Immigration detainees, the population those reports were written about, returned here in June 2025.

Management of the Special Programs Unit at the Federal Bureau of Prisons Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York (E&I Report 15-08, September 2015) was written because Judge Nicholas Garaufis, sentencing Ronell Wilson, cited “the apparent ineptitude of the Bureau of Prisons” and asked for it. The unit was established here in October 2000 for people with mental health conditions needing closer supervision than a general population unit gives, and for people at raised risk of victimization. The OIG found the Bureau had placed Wilson there, among vulnerable people, “without implementing safeguards or providing guidance to correctional staff.” Anyone whose client is placed in that unit should read it before deciding whether to object. Three years later an Inspector General review found that when 366 low-security sentenced women were moved here from FCI Danbury, some stayed “for nearly 3 years,” with “no access to outdoor space, less natural light and fewer programming opportunities.”

The 2025 PREA audit

MDC Brooklyn was audited under the Prison Rape Elimination Act on March 11–13, 2025, by an independent auditor, Lynni O’Haver of Corrections Consulting Services; the final report is dated April 16, 2025. The facility passed on every standard the auditor reached: 45 met, none exceeded and none unmet. The report discloses one limitation on that result. In the twelve months before the audit the facility recorded 28 allegations of sexual abuse — 14 naming another incarcerated person and 14 naming a staff member — plus 14 of sexual harassment, 13 of them against staff. The auditor reviewed 14 inmate-on-inmate abuse files and one harassment file, and not one staff-on-inmate file: “During the on-site, the Auditor was unable to review any Staff-on-Inmate investigations. According to the Office of Internal Affairs, all 28 staff involved investigations (14 – sexual abuse and 14 – sexual harassment) were still pending investigation.” The clean result rests on half the file.

The audit is also the fullest public description of the building: designated capacity 1,775 against 1,158 on the first day, 3,459 admissions in twelve months of which 2,029 stayed 30 days or more, no single-cell housing units, 80 segregation cells, 481 staff who may have inmate contact, accreditation by the American Correctional Association and no other body, and 50 people who disclosed prior sexual victimization at risk screening. The average length of stay was 411 days. In 2019 the Inspector General called this a short-term facility “averaging 120 to 180 days.” People now stay more than twice as long in a building designed for weeks.

The Government Accountability Office published per-institution figures in May 2026 covering a longer span: for MDC Brooklyn, 42 allegations between 2020 and 2024 in which another incarcerated person was the alleged perpetrator, and 69 in which a Bureau employee was. Two cautions apply. These are reported allegations, not findings, and GAO records that most allegations across the system from 2014 through 2022 ended unsubstantiated — meaning the evidence was not sufficient either way, not that the report was false. And GAO does not adjust for population, so the numbers cannot rank one facility against another.

Staffing, violence and the Bureau’s own response

Every strand of this record runs back to staffing. In September 2024 the Bureau published a fact sheet about a body it created for this institution alone: the Brooklyn Urgent Action Team, a group of Bureau executives chaired by the agency’s Associate Deputy Director. Its explanation of why is unusually candid: “The decision to use this novel approach and create this Team reflects the serious nature of the conditions at MDC and FBOP’s recognition that sustained and focused executive leadership will be required to achieve lasting change at MDC Brooklyn.” The same fact sheet reports correctional officer posts rising from 55 percent filled in January 2024 to 70 percent by September, medical posts from 69 percent to about 90, and this: “Notably, in January, MDC Brooklyn had one nurse on staff. It now employs six nurses on staff.” The population fell from about 1,580 to about 1,220, and repair teams closed more than 800 work orders.

What prompted it is in Judge Brown’s August 2024 opinion: “Each of the five months preceding this opinion was marred by instances of catastrophic violence at MDC, including two apparent homicides, two gruesome stabbings and an assault so severe that it resulted in a fractured eye socket.” In April 2024 three men inflicted 44 stab wounds on another in an open area, on video, with no supervision present; in June Uriel Whyte was stabbed to death and in July a second man died. Criminal prosecutions of staff run alongside: between 2013 and 2016 two lieutenants and a correctional officer sexually assaulted women held here and all three were convicted, one drawing 25 years. Since then an officer was sentenced in July 2024 for smuggling contraband for tens of thousands of dollars, another convicted in October 2025 of shooting a civilian driving away from the prison and sentenced in June 2026 to 200 months, and on March 18, 2026, a correctional officer and mentor coordinator was arrested on a federal indictment charging sexual abuse, sexual abuse of a ward and false statements.

MDC Brooklyn in the news

Recent news about MDC Brooklyn centers on two 2026 deaths and the immigration units; older items concern the 2024 designation pause, a 2021 death and the 2019 outage.

• August 2026 — the FBI and federal prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into the death of Godfrie Cole, 25, who died in the Special Housing Unit on July 21, 2026, in a suspected overdose. It was the second death at the jail in four months; Carlos Alberto Guerrero Mercado was found hanging in his cell in the spring. No cause of death has been announced in either case.
• July 2026 — in a release titled Death at MDC Brooklyn, the Bureau reported that Godfrie Cole was “found unresponsive” on July 21, 2026, and, after life-saving measures, was “pronounced deceased by hospital personnel.”
• February 2026 — Representative Dan Goldman became the first member of Congress to inspect the immigration units and wrote to Homeland Security, ICE and the Bureau demanding answers on medical care, access to counsel and interpreters.
• September 2024 — the Bureau paused new designations to the cadre component and stood up the Brooklyn Urgent Action Team; the pause was lifted by November 2025.
• August 2024 — Judge Gary Brown ordered a nine-month sentence converted to home incarceration if the Bureau designated this jail, citing “dangerous, barbaric conditions.”
• February 2021 — the Bureau posted one news release reporting the death of a person held at MDC Brooklyn; the Bureau’s releases are listed on its press release page.
• January 2019 — the fire and week-long partial power outage that produced the Inspector General’s inspection of this facility.

Frequently asked questions about MDC Brooklyn

Problems at MDC Brooklyn: where we can help

The problems that recur at this jail are the ones its own inspections, audits and court record keep producing. If someone you care about is held here, these are the issues worth acting on early. Our page on problems in federal prison explains how we approach them.

• Detention itself. A detention order can be reopened under § 3142(f), reviewed by the district judge under § 3145(b), or appealed under § 3145(c). Two published opinions from these districts treat conditions here as a reason not to detain, and both are usable with a record.
• Medical care that is not happening. The Bureau’s own fact sheet records one nurse on staff in January 2024. The route is a written request, then the administrative remedy process, which has a 20-day clock on the first step. See medical care in federal prison, and Federal Tort Claims Act claims where the delay has already done harm.
• Access to counsel. Legal visits canceled, unmonitored calls refused, discovery rationed to 90 minutes a week. The regulations are specific, the Attorney Guide is specific, and both are quotable in a letter to the Warden or a motion to the court.
• Designation. Where a sentence is served is decided in three working days from documents fixed at sentencing. Presentence report objections, a judicial recommendation and documented medical needs have to be in the record before the request is made. See our guides to designation and federal prison transfers.
• Sentence computation. Prior-custody credit under § 3585(b) is calculated by the Bureau, not the court, and it has to be checked when it arrives, along with any First Step Act time credits. See our page on sentence computation errors and the Bureau’s sentence computation rules.
• Special Housing placements that outlast their justification, including protective custody; disciplinary proceedings that threaten good conduct time; and compassionate release under the Bureau’s reduction-in-sentence rules where a medical condition cannot be managed in a jail like this one. See early release from federal prison.
• Challenges to the conviction or sentence itself, through a direct appeal or a § 2255 motion.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. handles federal criminal defense, appeals and post-conviction matters nationwide, and advises families on Bureau of Prisons issues at institutions across the system. Call (843) 620-1100 or contact us to talk through a specific situation.

Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, the firm’s Managing Director, writes and maintains the federal prison policy material on this site. He is not counsel of record; legal representation is provided by Elizabeth Franklin-Best.

Sources and currency

Bureau of Prisons documents

• MDC Brooklyn, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Contact details, mailing addresses and the eyeglasses instruction.
• Death at MDC Brooklyn, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• Attorney Guide to the Metropolitan Detention Center Brooklyn, New York, Federal Bureau of Prisons, MDC Brooklyn, 2025. Mission, legal access, mail and intake.
• MDC Brooklyn Fact Sheet – November 2025 – Designations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025.
• Brooklyn Urgent Action Team Fact Sheet, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2024. Staffing, nursing, population and repairs.
• MDC Brooklyn Admission and Orientation Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2021. Daily schedule, commissary, telephones and visiting.
• MDC Brooklyn Commissary List, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2020.
• Inmate Visiting, Institution Supplement BRO 5267.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2017.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• Inmate Telephone Regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Replaced Program Statement 5264.08 (2008).
• First Step Act of 2018 – Time Credits: Procedures for Implementation of 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4), Program Statement 5410.01, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2023.
• Pretrial Detention Legal Access Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2024. Includes the MDC Brooklyn provisions.
• First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Reentry Services Division, 2026. Programs by institution, including the RDAP locations list.
• First Step Act Time Credits—Revisions (interim final rule), Federal Bureau of Prisons (Federal Register), 2026. Effective September 30, 2026.
• Press Releases, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2021. Includes the February 2021 release reporting a death at MDC Brooklyn.

Audits and inspections

• Federal Prisons: Improvements Needed to Prevent, Detect, and Address Sexual Abuse (GAO-26-107343), U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2026. Per-institution allegation counts.
• PREA Audit Report: MDC Brooklyn, Lynni O’Haver, Corrections Consulting Services, 2025.
• Recommendations Issued by the Office of the Inspector General that were Not Closed as of June 30, 2024 (Report 24-084), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024. Lists the open heating recommendation from Report 19-04.
• Report of Investigation Regarding the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Inmate Jamel Floyd at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) Brooklyn (Report 23-015), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2023.
• Review and Inspection of Metropolitan Detention Center Brooklyn Facilities Issues and Related Impacts on Inmates (Report 19-04), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2019.
• Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Management of Its Female Inmate Population (Report 18-05), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2018. Includes the transfer of women from FCI Danbury.
• Management of the Special Programs Unit at the Federal Bureau of Prisons Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York (Report 15-08), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2015.
• Supplemental Report on September 11 Detainees’ Allegations of Abuse at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2003.
• The September 11 Detainees: A Review of the Treatment of Aliens Held on Immigration Charges in Connection with the Investigation of the September 11 Attacks, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2003. Chapter 7 covers conditions at MDC Brooklyn.

Court records

• BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law and Using a Firearm in Relation to a Crime of Violence, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. The officer’s 200-month sentence.
• BOP Correctional Officer Arrested for Sexual Abuse of an Inmate and Making False Statements, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. The March 2026 arrest.
• Former Federal Correction Officer Sentenced to Prison for Accepting Bribes in Exchange for Smuggling Contraband into the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024.
• United States v. Colucci, No. 23-CR-417 (GRB), U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, 2024.
• United States v. Chavez, No. 22-CR-303 (JMF), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 2024.
• Federal Defenders of New York, Inc. v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, 954 F.3d 118, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 2020.
• Scott v. United States, No. 1:19-cv-01075, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, 2019. Settlement announced in August 2023.
• United States v. Wilson, 503 U.S. 329, Supreme Court of the United States, 1992.
• United States v. Leon, 766 F.2d 77, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 1985.

News and other sources

• Feds open criminal probe after MDC Brooklyn inmate dies in solitary confinement, New York Daily News, 2026.
• Letter to the Department of Homeland Security, ICE and the Bureau of Prisons on ICE detainees at MDC Brooklyn, Office of U.S. Representative Dan Goldman, 2026.
• ICE Has Doubled Its Presence in Notorious Brooklyn Jail, THE CITY, 2026.
• ‘Dirty’ and ‘infested with drugs’: the New York jail holding Maduro and Mangione, The Guardian, 2026.
• The NYC jail holding Maduro has a history of big names and dangerous conditions, NPR, 2026.
• A Half Measure: BOP No Longer Sending Sentenced Defendants to Troubled Brooklyn Detention Center, Arnold & Porter, 2024.
• 18 U.S.C. § 3142(e)(1), (f), (i), Release or detention of a defendant pending trial, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 3145(b), (c), Review and appeal of a release or detention order, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 3585(a), (b), Calculation of a term of imprisonment, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(B)(ii), Development of risk and needs assessment system, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 U.S.C. § 1291, Final decisions of district courts, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 C.F.R. § 523.42(a), Earning First Step Act Time Credits, Code of Federal Regulations (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 C.F.R. § 540.18, Special mail, Code of Federal Regulations (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 C.F.R. § 543.13(c), (e), Visits by attorneys, Code of Federal Regulations (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 C.F.R. § 551.101, Definitions, Code of Federal Regulations (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 C.F.R. § 551.117(a), Access to legal resources, Code of Federal Regulations (Legal Information Institute).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026