New York: IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a man accustomed to luxury hotel suites and first-class plane travel, will make his home for now at New York City's notorious Rikers Island jail.
Strauss-Kahn was transferred from a detention center attached to the Manhattan Criminal Court to Rikers Island on Monday and held in protective custody in an 11-by-13-foot (3-by-4 metre) cell, a spokesman for the New York City Department of Correction said.
A judge earlier on Monday denied Strauss-Kahn bail on charges he attempted to rape a hotel maid and set his next court date for Friday. Both Rikers and the courthouse detention center, best-known as "The Tombs," are harsh, loud and dangerous.
"It's crowded and the food is terrible. And one of the dangerous things is famous people are preyed upon," said Gerald Lefcourt, a well-known defense attorney, referring to both places.
"There are really heavy-duty prison bars and gates that make a lot of clanging sounds every time they are open and closed," Lefcourt said. Defense lawyers said they were considering whether to appeal the bail ruling. Should the judge reaffirm the denial of bail, Strauss-Kahn could be held at Rikers throughout any trial.
Kept from other inmates
Strauss-Kahn checked into Rikers Island's West Facility, the smallest of the 10 jails in the complex and designed to care for inmates with communicable diseases, the spokesman said. Although Strauss-Kahn is healthy, the design allows him to be separated from any inmates who might seek fame by attacking someone famous.
He is one of 25 to 30 inmates in the facility but will be kept from other inmates when he leaves his cell to stretch his legs, watch television in the common room or exercise.
"This is not about isolating the inmate from any human contact, this is about preventing the inmate from being victimized or harmed in some way as a result of his high profile," said the spokesman, who asked not to be identified.
Lights go out at 11 pm. Kahn is allowed three visitors a week aside from his lawyer and he will be given one hour a day for exercise. Strauss-Kahn was issued bedding and a standard toiletry kit of a drinking cup, soap, shampoo and toothpaste, the spokesman said.
The Rikers complex, which is on an island in the East River near LaGuardia airport, is well-known to watchers of television and film crime dramas as the place where criminal suspects are sent pending trial or to serve short jail sentences. The island can be reached via bridge from the borough of Queens.
Dating to the 1930s, Rikers holds about 11,000 inmates on any given day. Like every new inmate, Strauss-Kahn was given a psychological and physical exam. Guards look for tattoos or other signs of gang affiliation. Jail officials then assign a score to determine the inmate's security risk.
Strauss-Kahn will likely be able to wear his own clothes with jail-issued slippers and bring books with him and read a newspaper daily. A typical meal will include meat and vegetables with plenty of starch on the side to help prisoners feel full. So why is Rikers so hated" The size of the place, combined with the uncertain future that inmates face, contribute to their anxiety.
"Uncertainty breeds tension," said one source familiar with jail operations.
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