The 18-year-old detainee with a history of mental illness who hanged himself on Rikers Island last week, while a group of guards allegedly watched, was being held for over a month without seeing a judge or being given a chance to apply for bail. He didn't even have a lawyer.

Nicholas Feliciano tried to take his own life in a Rikers holding cell on November 27th, while Correction Officers watched on closed circuit TV, the New York Times reported earlier this week. Feliciano, who had tried to commit suicide before, remains in a medically-induced coma at Elmhurst Hospital.

Three Rikers officers and one captain have been suspended as city officials investigate, Mayor Bill de Blasio confirmed on Wednesday. "These allegations are deeply troubling," he tweeted.

The tragedy spotlights not just New York City's repeated failures to humanely oversee people being held on Rikers Island, but also implicates New York State's parole system.

Feliciano had been sentenced to state prison as a youthful offender, so his criminal records are sealed. He had been sentenced for robbery, the Times reported. Paroled in October, Feliciano was sent to Rikers after his arrest by state parole officers on November 19th for allegedly violating the conditions of his release.

A state parole officer with knowledge of the case told Gothamist that the parole violation warrant filed against Feliciano alleged that the teen took an unauthorized out-of-state trip to New Jersey, tested positive for marijuana, and went "shopping with his mom instead of to mandatory treatment."

The Times and the Daily News alleged Feliciano tried to buy or had purchased a gun, but two persons with knowledge of the case who spoke on condition of anonymity said the source of the firearm allegations were text messages on Feliciano's phone found by parole officers inspecting his mobile device.

Feliciano was afforded the chance to have a preliminary, probable-cause type hearing on the parole violation charges against him before an administrative law judge within 14 days of his arrest, but he waived the hearing at the request of his parole officer.

"I don’t know what happened in this case, but our experience is that many times Parole Officers tell parolees it'll be better for them if they waive and in many cases parolees do," said Lorraine C. McEvilley, Director of the Legal Aid Society's Parole Revocation Defense Unit. McEvilley estimated that parolees waive preliminary hearings in 60 to 70 percent of the parole violation cases in New York City.

"They were keeping him in jail for at least a month before he ever saw a judge and had not been assigned a lawyer after his detention,” she added. McEvilley's unit took up Feliciano's case only after being informed about it by Correctional Health Services.

Feliciano was in a fight Thanksgiving Eve and needed medical attention. Instead of being taken to a clinic for treatment, he was held for hours in a holding cell by himself. He acted erratically before hanging himself while a group of guards watched. Both Feliciano and the guards are seen on camera, according to the Times' report.

Just before midnight, an off-duty captain saw Feliciano hanging and brought him down.

A spokesperson for the New York City Correction Officers' Benevolent Association, Mike Scully, did not respond to our messages seeking comment. COBA president Elias Husamudeen told CBS that he blamed the Department of Correction and jail officials for what happened. He also denied that any of his officers watched Feliciano hang himself.

“Someone took an 18-year-old who they determined was mentally ill, who they determined was a danger to himself, and they put him in a maximum security jail on Rikers Island. Should have never been there,” Husamudeen said. “They come up with a story that four Correction Officers stood and watched for seven minutes, when nothing could have been further from the truth...That never happened.”

The state Department of Corrections and Community Services, known as DOCCS, which manages New York’s prison system and parole apparatus, declined to provide the official documents formally charging Feliciano with a parole violation.

A federal monitor charged with overseeing conditions in New York City jails painted a dangerous picture of chaos and inept management of Rikers by the City’s Department of Correction, according to an October report by the monitor.

“In particular the Department does not effectively manage its Staff," the federal monitor found.

De Blasio downplayed the report’s most damning conclusions.

“Whenever there is a monitor report, it doesn’t tell you necessarily the whole picture,” the mayor told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer.

"This is horrifying. This is shocking. But it's no longer surprising tragedies like these happen on Rikers Island," said Tyler Nims, the executive director of the Independent Commission on Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform.

"It is something that has to change on the state level. It is something that Albany needs to fix."

New York State reincarcerates more parolees for technical violations of release conditions than any other state except Illinois, based on an examination of data from the 42 states that keep it, Gothamist reported back in April. On Rikers, at the same time the number of overall prisoners has been dropping, the number of technical parole violators has been increasing, according to the Mayor's Office.

The latest data confirms that the number of New Yorkers held on Rikers for technical parole violations—as opposed to new crimes—is continuing to grow. 777 were held in October 2019, 6.9 percent more than the 727 technical violators that were held on Rikers in October 2018, the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services reported.

Unlike Rikers Island, which is de Blasio's responsibility, the state parole system falls under the authority of Governor Andrew Cuomo.

A Cuomo spokesperson has not yet responded to our request for comment.

DOCCS lifted the parole violation warrant against Feliciano on Wednesday, Thomas Mailey, DOCCS spokesperson, said in an email to Gothamist. "This will allow the New York City Department of Corrections to remove their security detail from the hospital." Mailey added that the decision was made “out of deference to the family and at the request of various interested parties.”

Nims called New York's parole system "unjust and upside down."

"We shouldn't have a system where people accused of crimes are seen by a judge, but people on parole are automatically sent to jail for weeks and months without seeing a judge and without the chance even to post bail," Nims said.

A bill introduced by Manhattan State Senator Brian Benjamin called The Less is More Act, would strip parole officers of the power to take parolees straight to jail for alleged technical parole violations. For alleged violations that might justify being sent back to prison, the bill requires local criminal courts to conduct bail hearings before someone is locked up for a parole violation.

The Less is More Act is bottled up in a state Senate committee. Advocates plan a new push to pass the bill this coming legislative session in Albany, starting in January.

On Wednesday night at the Kew Gardens apartment Feliciano lived in with his grandmother, Madeline, and brother Jonathan, a Christmas tree could be seen through a window.

Jonathan opened the door to accept a delivery of Chinese food, but declined a request for comment.

If someone you know exhibits warning signs of suicide: do not leave the person alone; remove any firearms, alcohol, drugs or sharp objects that could be used in a suicide attempt; and call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or take the person to an emergency room or seek help from a medical or mental health professional.