Metro

Brutal system of teen beatings continues at Rikers Island’s RNDC prison

KHALID NELSON

KHALID NELSON

DENISE ALBRIGHT

DENISE ALBRIGHT

MICHAEL MCKIE

MICHAEL MCKIE

Prisoner with his arms hanging out of cell bar (Getty Images)

AMONG THE VICTIMS: Eighteen-year-old Christopher Robinson was killed in 2008 by thugs in “The Program,” a brutal hierarchy which victimizes youthsat Rikers Island including and inmate (insert) who was hospitalized for a broken jaw. (
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Not long after his arrest on burglary charges, 18-year-old Kadeem John figured out the power structure at his housing unit at Rikers Island’s notorious RNDC youth jail.

At the top was a crew of battle-tested brawlers who controlled everything in “Two Lower” — one of the 50-prisoner housing units that make up the 500-inmate Robert N. Davoren Center. They decided what food each inmate got, where they could sit, if they could call home or play basketball in the gym.

Those who agreed to the hierarchy had to prove themselves by beating up any prisoner the leaders chose — “pop-off dummies” who, if they obeyed, might be rewarded with minor privileges, like keeping the money put into their commissary accounts.

Those who didn’t could expect quick revenge.

John had been in and out of trouble since his first arrest in 2008, when cops busted him and an accomplice trying to force shoppers to give money to a church basketball team outside the Atlantic Terminal Mall in downtown Brooklyn. In 2010, when he arrived at Two Lower, he was facing a felony burglary rap.

“He was a new inmate and approached by the leaders. They told him, ‘You have to beat someone up,’ and he said no. He knew he was in trouble,” said a former Rikers insider. “They wanted him out of the house.”

As John walked in a single-file line on his way back to his cell one afternoon after lunch, an undersized teen standing in front of him suddenly switched places and got behind John.

The teen, Gerald Gayle, was trying to impress the jailhouse rulers, the source said.

“He was being put through the same stuff — he didn’t want to give up his commissary and calls, and to do that he had to fight somebody.”

When the group filed down a flight of stairs, Gayle suddenly punched John in the back of the head, the source said, and John tumbled down the stairs, hitting his head and passing out. A group of others pounced on him, savagely beating and kicking him.

“He was in Elmhurst Hospital for three weeks,” the source said. “He had water on the brain, the doctors said, and bruises up and down his rib cage and liver damage.”

But when a lawyer hired by his family asked about the incident, officials at the city Department of Correction could offer no explanation, and a videotape of the fight vanished.

Two top Rikers Island insiders say John was just the latest victim of a sadistic system of jailhouse enforcement called “The Program,” which has brutalized thousands. It continues to reign, they said, despite the fact that federal investigators in January began reviewing records related to The Program and the mishandling of adolescent prisoners.

The insiders revealed to The Post shocking new details about the fight-club culture, and how guards persist in coddling the caste system, in essence deputizing top-dog thugs and allowing them to beat and rob overmatched, weaker teens. It’s the way they maintain order without having to use force and endanger their careers.

“It’s how they keep control of things without having to get their hands dirty,” said one source. “The guards know there are cameras everywhere so if they do anything to an inmate, they could get jammed up.

“And the inmates know this too. They’ll say, ‘What are you going to do to me? The camera’s right there. Go ahead.’ ”

The savage system first came to light in 2009, after the beating death a year earlier of 18-year-old Christopher Robinson, who was being held on a parole violation.

A gang of enforcers put Robinson into a wrestling hold called the chicken wing — a move they learned from officers — then punched and kicked him to death.

Robinson, himself an enforcer, had stepped out of line with Rikers guards. They transferred him to another housing unit, knowing he would be attacked. His cell door had been mysteriously left open the day of the deadly assault.

The accused ringleaders in Robinson’s death, Correction Officers Michael McKie and Khalid Nelson, got sweetheart plea deals — McKie was sentenced to two years for assault and Nelson to one year for attempted assault. A third officer, Denise Albright, was convicted of assault in January and sentenced to a year in jail. Seven inmates also have been charged in Robinson’s death.

“The Correction Department can’t police itself,” said lawyer Sanford Rubenstein, who represents Robinson’s family. “The feds have to step in and stop this.”

Officers who are supposed to keep the island’s youngest suspects safe continue to allow frequent fistfights in bathrooms and an area behind ball courts, a former investigator said.

“I’d say there are about 15 to 18 fights a day there and more than 4,000 injuries each year,” said the source. “It’s got to be the most of any prison in the country. Some of these kids who get locked up there, they stand no chance.”

During mealtimes, a savage pecking order is revealed, they said.

“There are four long tables so enough seats for everyone, but you’ll see one table that has only one to four inmates and all these empty seats. Those are the leaders. They call them ‘The Team.’ Nobody else is allowed to sit there,” an investigator said.

Another table is filled with “The Rockers,” enforcer friends of the leaders who fight each other or pummel lower-level inmates when told to do so and benefit by being allowed to steal food, money and privileges from the less powerful.

The next group down is called “The Dicks.”

“You’ll have two tables of Dicks. They’re fighting to survive so they might challenge one of The Rockers to move up. They get no phone or TV privileges.”

The bottom rung is a hapless group known as “On the Balls.”

“These are the kids who have to sit on the floor. They get nothing. The Dicks steal their food. If someone puts money into their commissary account, it gets taken.

“Some of them are so scared, they don’t even come out of their cells.”

Newcomers are asked, “Are you with it?” — meaning do they go along with The Program. If the answer is no, a beating or “spanking” follows, the sources said.

The city Correction Department insisted that The Program has been dismantled.

“Allegations about a ‘program’ today are patently false,” spokeswoman Sharman Stein said in a written statement.

“Bullying among adolescents occurs in jail as it does in the community, and that is why the department has dedicated considerable resources to substantively address this issue.”

The department did not dispute one source’s statistic of 4,435 injuries at RNDC last year — an average of 12 a day — but claimed there were now just three fights a day and only 11 injuries between January and March, none requiring hospitalization.

“I guarantee you those figures are wrong,” said one source, who noted the US Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is looking into whether stats on injuries and fights were fudged.

“That’s what the feds are interested in. They’re reading all the reports from gang intel and comparing them with official stats.”

He said he’s seen “inmates with laceration wounds and the guy would say, ‘He cut me,’ but the department would try to cover that up. They would have a warden or captain try to talk the victim out of it or the doctor would say it was consistent with a punch.”

He added: “If they didn’t do that, their stabbing and slashing rate would be as high as in the 1990s.”

Legal Aid lawyer John Boston, who represents many young offenders at Rikers, scoffed at claims by the department that the system of enforcement has ended.

“There’s no question that the Program system continues,” said Boston, who represents Kadeem John in John’s suit against the city.

“We continue to receive complaints from inmates who have been exploited and dominated with the apparent complicity of Correction Department officers.”

He said Correction brass are often not informed about the extent of problems at RNDC.

“There’s a real disconnect from people at the top of the department and those who are on the ground.”