Lab tests challenge claim that drugs are smuggled into Rikers mainly via the mail

NEW YORK — Back on Oct. 25, 2022, then Correction Commissioner Louis Molina gave dramatic testimony about a flood of deadly fentanyl soaked packages and letters entering the jails, pointing to a child’s drawing and a t-shirt as evidence.

“How does fentanyl get into our jails?” Molina told the City Council with photos of the items next to him. “The short answer is that most of it enters in letters and packages.”

In fact, according to a report issued Wednesday by the city Department of Investigation, lab analysis of those same items tested negative not just fentanyl but all narcotics.

“None of these items tested positive for any controlled substances based on the laboratory tests,” the report said.

A second DOI report on jail contraband released Wednesday found lax security allows contraband to get into the jails often through staff.

The DOI report on testing also found the field tests that the Correction Department uses to detect fentanyl yield false positive results 85% of the time. But DOC “rarely” double-checks the field test results by sending them to labs, a step even recommended by the field test maker, the report said.

Molina’s 2022 testimony was part of an effort, in the wake of four fentanyl overdose deaths, to ban detainee mail arguing it was the main source of drug contraband. The effort failed in March 2023 when the Board of Correction refused to bring the proposal to a vote.

Molina moved on to City Hall and is now commissioner of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services. But DOC continued using field tests to identify suspected narcotics and making arrests based on those results.

To examine that strategy, after complaints about false positives from inside the agency, DOI’s investigators submitted 71 items to a private lab for testing.

On average, the report states, just 11 of the 71 items or 15% that had tested positive for fentanyl in the field tests also tested positive in the lab.

The manufacturers of the tests themselves advise confirming a positive test with a lab. “Results obtained from MobileDetect are presumptive and should be confirmed using laboratory equipment as required,” advises DetectaChem, the firm which makes the field tests currently used by DOC.

But DOI says Correction officials didn’t do that, even as it continues to pursue approval of a ban on mail under current Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, the report said.

The DOI report said Correction officials should stop arresting anyone just on the basis of field tests and conduct a review of cases where a detainee was punished for a drug test that turned out to be false.

Meanwhile, the second DOI report found, the agency’s security net remains riddled with holes that allow contraband to breeze into the jails often through staff.

“DOI’s investigations have shown that contraband enters DOC facilities through means including DOC staff, and that DOC has failed to fully implement DOI’s prior recommendations,” DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber said.

For example, the number of seized contraband cell phones – too bulky to be smuggled in the mail or by visitors – has skyrocketed. In 2021, staff found 50 cellphones in the jails. The number jumped to 200 in 2022 and declined to 92 in 2023 – still nearly double what it was two years earlier.

While Adams administration officials have insisted most drugs come in via the mail, staff brings in narcotics including drug-soaked sheets of paper “with ease,” the second report said.

“A DOC staff member can bring in hundreds of soaked pages at a time, whereas a PIC may be able to get only one or two pages through the mail,” the report said.

Drug-sniffing dogs at the main gates can catch drugs but corrupt officers can get around them by bringing drugs in on nights, weekends or holidays when their handlers are not on duty, the report said.

Officers can sneak drugs in and get around a ban on cellphones in the jails because DOC doesn’t check them when they move from their locker rooms to their posts. The agency’s vetting procedures for civilian staff often miss workers with ties to detainees or prior criminal past, the report said.

The report notes DOI has been calling attention to the problem of staff contraband smuggling since at least 2014. Since 2018, 38 officers and civilians have been arrested for contraband smuggling, the report said.

While DOC has put in place several of DOI’s recommendations to stem the tide, it has rejected others, including having an outside contractor or law enforcement agency handle searches of staff. And, notably, the agency overturned a policy barring correction officers from wearing many-pocketed cargo pants.