The last inmates housed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, a federal facility known for housing such notorious figures as Joaquin El Chapo Guzman and Jeffrey Epstein, have been transferred out as the building undergoes repairs, a Justice Department spokesperson said Tuesday.
Once hailed as a prototype for a new kind of jail and the most secure in the country, conditions at the Manhattan facility known as the MCC have badly deteriorated.
The Justice Department announced in August that it would close the federal jail to undertake much-needed repairs. Inmates were mainly transferred to the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center as well as a limited number of other facilities, the spokesperson said.
MCC employees, including health services staff, are being temporarily assigned to the MDC Brooklyn facility, and many are expected to transition into permanent positions there.
The Department remains committed to ensuring that every facility in the federal prison system is not only safe and secure, but also provides people in custody with the resources and programs they need to make a successful return to society after they have served their time, the DOJ said.
It's not clear if the facility will reopen.
The Metropolitan Correctional Center has housed a slew of famously well-known criminals — El Chapo, John Gotti, Bernie Madoff and some of the world s most dangerous terrorists. Prisoners are held at the jail as they await their trials or transfer to other federal prisons after conviction.
Two guards were indicted following the 2019 suicide death of Epstein, a disgraced financier facing trial on sex trafficking charges, after an investigation found they did not conduct the appropriate checks on his cell.