New York courthouses are in decrepit and ‘historically unsanitary’ condition, photos show

Manhattan court staff are back at work in person, and it’s the same dingy, dirty mess they left behind 16 months ago.

After being forced to work remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, employees have returned to non-public areas of courthouses that have not seen a lick of paint in years, lack critical ventilation improvements and have not even had a proper cleaning, photos shared exclusively with the Daily News program.

With the delta variant risk still looming, both court workers and visitors should wear masks and stay 6 feet apart; signage posted in the sprawling and ornate courtrooms guides them through the space.

But behind the scenes in one of the busiest court parts of the city, AR1, in Manhattan, musty chairs, dirt-spattered walls and soot-blackened air vents are the norm in a conference room where detainees watch and talk to their lawyers for the first time.

“I’ve been there 20 years,” veteran defense attorney Julie Sender said after viewing the photos. “Those spots have been there for as long as I can remember.”

The images show what the private areas of the court have been like during the pandemic and, according to those who frequent them, they are the same as always. Several courthouse workers said the sections prisoners pass through are notoriously disgusting and unbearably stuffy.

Several people familiar with the inside areas said the poor conditions behind the walls of the courtroom, where defense attorneys meet with their clients before arraignments to discuss the charges against them, posed a danger to court occupants even in pre-pandemic times.

“These are historically unsanitary conditions, and the information that we have been able to obtain from (the Office of Court Administration) and other agencies does not provide as much information about what they have done in the non-public areas … as these interview areas and the holding cells and everywhere else,” said Lisa Ohta, president of the Legal Aid Society lawyers union.

Ohta said public defenders saw the dirty evidence for themselves when they returned to work in person on reopening day.

“We are looking for basic guarantees and reasonable preventive measures such as social distancing and masks. Make sure these spaces are properly cleaned. I mean, these are imminently reasonable requests,” Ohta added.

In March, The News reported that the city-run Department of City Administrative Services, which owns and maintains the city’s 29 court buildings, failed to equip holding cells with new ventilation systems, even as it equipped holding rooms neighboring audiences with improved facilities. A spokeswoman for the agency’s commissioner, Lisette Camilo, said the holding cells are outside of DCAS’s jurisdiction, and the reason for this is for the safety of her cleaning staff.

A source who regularly frequents the non-public areas in question, speaking candid on condition of anonymity, said the juvenile offenders, who can be as young as 7, are being held in the same parts of the court described as cockroaches. infested with rodents.

Sender also said that while working remotely, he found it hard to believe that his clients in custody were being placed in these areas.

“Sometimes when I talk to someone, and these are small cells, I can see that there are at least three or four people in the cell, so they are done with social distancing,” he said.

In a statement, a DCAS spokesperson said its custodians lack keys and access to holding cells and other non-public areas due to special security precautions. They said OCA, the Department of Correction and the NYPD are responsible for off-limits areas, adding that none of those agencies requested that they be cleaned up or updated with DCAS.

The News requested a tour of the holding cells where the male defendants are being held, the area where the women and children are being held, and the attorney-client meeting booths.

Three OCA staff members and a city corrections sergeant accompanied a reporter Friday morning for a brief tour of the attorney-client room, which appeared to have been cleaned up compared to photos provided to The News. taken several days before.

Legal Aid’s chief public advocate, Tina Luongo, said courtroom areas out of public view have always been miserable.

“These deplorable conditions are nothing new. The city has completely failed in its commitment to maintain these sanitary areas, and this failure, in our opinion, is indicative of how one administration after another views our hard-working staff and the New Yorkers we represent,” said Luongo.

“This level of incompetence is truly shameful and we demand immediate action from the City to keep these areas clean and safe for our staff and their customers.”