A Queens, N.Y., man spent approximately five months in New York City’s notoriously dangerous Rikers Island prison, unaware his bail was just $2, according to his lawyers.
Aitabdel Salem, 41, was sent to Rikers after he was arrested on Nov 21, 2014, in connection with an attack on a New York police officer. The officer had stopped him on suspicion of shoplifting at a clothing store, the New York Daily News reported.
Salem’s bail was originally set at $25,000 but when prosecutors failed to get an indictment he was ordered to be released a week later on Nov. 28, the Daily News reported.
However, he still had bails owing from two minor offences, including tampering with a cash machine and mischief charges that a judge set at $2. He sat in Rikers from Nov. 2014 to April 2015, while his bail was just $2 — the price of a slice of pizza or a cup coffee.
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Salem’s current lawyers, Glenn Hardy and Theodore Goldbergh, blamed his previous attorney for not informing him.
Salem was released in April 2015, but was arrested again a few weeks later for failing to appear at an arraignment for the original assault charge, according to the Daily News.
His lawyers said the letter informing Salem of his court date was lost in the mail and had been stamped “return to sender” by the post office.
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Salem remains in Rikers after missing his court date with bail now set at $30,000, according to court records.
Rikers Island has been labelled one of the worst prisons in America, and the subject of several lawsuits and investigations by U.S. officials due to overcrowding and brutality by prison guards.
An Associated Press investigation found breakdowns in procedures and protocols contributed to at least nine suicides and 15 health-related deaths in a five year span.
In June 2015, 22-year-old Kalief Browder who was held in Rikers from 2010-2013, without a trial for allegedly stealing a backpack committed suicide.
And in 2014, Jerome Murdough, a mentally ill homeless veteran who died at Rikers, was “essentially baked to death” in a jail cell that overheated to more than 100 degrees F.
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