Another person died in city custody Monday, after succumbing to injuries he sustained while attempting to take his own life inside a Manhattan holding cell last week, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Anthony Scott, 58, was arraigned on an assault charge on Friday and ordered to pay $15,000 cash bail or $45,000 bond. Unable to come up with the money that day, he was ordered to be sent to Rikers Island. While awaiting the transfer, he attempted to hang himself inside a Central Booking location at Manhattan Criminal Court, sources said.
He was hospitalized through the weekend in an intensive care unit at a New York Presbyterian hospital location, and was pronounced dead on Monday afternoon.
“We are devastated to learn of Anthony Scott’s passing, and extend the deepest condolences to his family, friends and community during this tragically difficult time,” Tina Luongo, Attorney-In-Charge of the Criminal Defense Practice at The Legal Aid Society, said in a statement.
Luongo added that Scott was “continually criminalized for his struggle with mental illness,” while blaming the Department of Correction and the NYPD for “consistently failing in their legal and moral obligations to keep our clients safe.”
According to a criminal complaint, Scott was arrested after punching a nurse who was helping to treat him as a patient.
The death comes as conditions in the city’s jail complex have continued to deteriorate, leading some advocates and elected officials to call for both judges and district attorneys to do more to help alleviate the crisis on Rikers Island.
Scott’s suicide attempt came the same day that Victor Mercado, a 64-year-old who caught COVID-19 while incarcerated at Rikers, became the 13th person to die in a city jail.
