14-MONTH FEDERAL STUDY DENOUNCES CRUEL CONDITIONS AT THE NASSAU CO JAIL

MINEOLA, N.Y., Sept. 15 - There was the housing tier that the inmates
called the terror dome, because correction officers meted out particularly
brutal discipline there.

There were the elevator rides that troublesome inmates took: a prisoner,
handcuffed to an inner railing, would be beaten senseless by a half-dozen
guards as the car ascended and descended.

There was the medical wing, staffed not by physicians, but by guards, who
acted as doctors and dispensed psychiatric medicines.

These and many more facets of life in the Nassau County jail were detailed
in a scathing 23-page report released to county officials after a 14-month
federal investigation.

The investigation, by the Department of Justice, was provoked by the death
of an inmate who was bludgeoned by correction officers on Jan. 8, 1999,
because he would not stop begging for methadone.

The report, dated Sept. 11, was delivered to the Nassau County executive,
Thomas S. Gulotta, and the county sheriff, Edward Reilly. It said that jail
officials failed to discipline their staff, failed to investigate inmates'
allegations of abuse, provided little and sometimes no training to
correction officers before putting them to work, were indifferent to
inmates' medical needs and failed to keep track of officers who were
consistently accused of brutality.

The contents of the study, first reported today in Newsday, included
findings that, in some cases, correction officers paid inmates, with
cigarettes, food and other treats, to beat up other prisoners - usually sex
offenders. Inmates referred to some correctional crews as "goon squads" and
"beat-up crews," the report said, and in one case, it said, an officer told
an inmate, "Hope you enjoy your stay, rapist," and doused him with a fire
extinguisher.

The 1,600-bed jail has "an institutional culture that supports and promotes
abuse," said the report, which was signed by Loretta E. Lynch, the United
States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and Bill Lann Lee,
the assistant United States attorney general for civil rights. "We find
that the various explanations offered by jail administrators for their
failure to discipline staff for using excessive force are pretexts for
inaction," they wrote.

Sheriff Reilly said today that many of the recommendations made by the
government had been put into effect, but he offered no specifics. "At this
juncture, it would be premature and inappropriate to comment on the report
in detail," the sheriff wrote in a faxed statement. "However, I can say
that a number of items referred to in the report, derived from the on-site
inspection over a year ago, have been addressed."

The report laid out six pages of minimum recommendations that the county
must meet by Oct. 30 or face federal sanctions. Among those recommendations
are: providing all correctional workers with training before they assume
their posts; creating a meaningful system of reporting and tracking the use
of force; and restructuring the internal affairs unit as an independent
oversight board.

Moreover, the report said, the county must increase access to health and
dental care, provide doctors and nurses for this purpose, and train
officers to deal with inmates with special needs, including women, the
mentally ill and those infected with H.I.V.

"The report corroborates our worst fears about what was happening behind
those walls," said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional
Association, a nonprofit watchdog group. "Unfortunately, what happened in
Nassau County is not that rare. Unless there is a strong sheriff or outside
agency, the worst inclinations of that staff often take over and go
unaccounted or unpunished."

While the federal authorities will have the right to sue the county after
Oct. 30, they have expressed an interest in working with the county to
avoid litigation. "We hope to address the concerns laid out in the report,"
said Sanford Cohen, chief of the civil rights litigation section of the
United States attorney's office, who supervised the investigation. Mr.
Cohen successfully prosecuted five correction officers in connection with
the beating death of the heroin addict, Thomas Pizzuto.

Changes have taken place at the jail since Mr. Pizzuto's death, county
officials said. Former Sheriff Joseph Jablonski retired last year under
pressure from state and federal officials and was replaced by Edward
Reilly. Furthermore, the Nassau County Medical Center, which provides
health care to inmates, has gone from county ownership to an independent
public benefit corporation.

"When the hospital was a county appendage," said Gary Lewi, a hospital
spokesman, "there were many problems, among them a level of understaffing
that led to officers dispensing medicine at the center. Today, there are
nurses dispensing medicines at the jail."

The report could not have come at a worse time for the county, whose
executive was locked behind closed doors today trying to come up with a
balanced budget to stave off a state takeover of his administration's
troubled finances.

"The sheriff is reviewing the report with counsel and we are expecting his
recommendation by Tuesday," said Diane Baumert-Moyik, a spokeswoman for Mr.
Gulotta.

Lisanne G. Altmann, a county legislator and outspoken critic of the jail,
said that while she was most concerned about the well-being of the inmates
- - two-thirds of whom are awaiting trial - the financial consequences of the
report could be devastating to the cash-strapped county.

"It's obvious that doctors and nurses are going to cost more money," Ms.
Altmann said. `It's our obligation to provide them. The question is how?"

As for the correction officers, morale could not be lower, said Mike Adams,
president of their union. His members have worked without a raise or a
contract for the last 3 1/2 years. Meanwhile, overtime has been scaled back
and high-ranking officers are now forced to work on the inmate housing
tiers because the county is having trouble attracting applicants for 80
open positions that pay $25,000 a year.

"It's the toughest job in the state," Mr. Adams said. "It's a large
facility and there have been some instances of abuse, I'm not denying that.
But are there systematic abuses here? No way. Right now we're housing 100
federal prisoners. I can't see how the feds would allow that if this report
were the truth."