Is County Trying To Make Officer Scapegoat For Missing Document On Inmates Death?

The Westchester Corrections Association (WCA) is in FULL SUPPORT of Officer Grant. “It is reprehensible that an officer’s report is missing. We will not allow any officer to be a “FALL GUY” or “SCAPEGOAT” for the county’s failure in properly filing reports of serious incidents,” WCA says in a statement posted on Facebook.

Westchester County Jail – Lydia McNulty, whose son Rashad McNulty died of a heart attack while he was behind bars, is concerned there could be a cover–up after a Westchester County corrections officer said his supervisors asked him to sign a report about the fatality that he says he did not the author.

“Something is not right. What are they trying to hide?” Lydia McNulty told NBC News 4 I-Team.

Rashad McNulty of Yonkers, who was being held in by the Westchester County Department of Correction awaiting sentencing on a drug charge in 2013 when he complained of chest pains and dizziness for three hours while locked up at the Westchester County Correctional Facility.

McNulty was one of 65 Yonkers Gang Members, Associates, and Others charged with Narcotics and Firearms Offenses by PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

McNulty’s family has filed a lawsuit claiming the jail and its private medical contractor, Correct Care Solutions, failed to help the dying inmate. The episode was captured on closed-circuit video.

“I’ve seen the video. To see my son like that, it kills me,” said Lydia McNulty who lives in Mount Vernon. “And to watch him lying on the floor as they’re talking, really to me he wasn’t getting no care.”

To add insult to injury, there is the appearance of the Westchester County Department of Corrections attempting to cover up the death and with a doctored report.

During deposition testimony, corrections officer Kevin Grant said he witnessed McNulty repeatedly calling for medical help and wrote two reports about the incident. But two weeks later, Grant said jail supervisors brought him a third report, with different wording, to endorse.

Is the WCDOC trying to make a scapegoat out of Officer Grant to cover their tracks and liability in the death of McNulty? That’s exactly what we attempted to ask the WCDOC, but they declined to comment claiming they could not speak to the matter due to pending litigation.

Jared Rice of Rice & Rice Attorneys in New Rochelle, the attorney representing Rashad McNulty’s family, said he was troubled by Grant’s testimony.

“You would never expect a public official, a corrections officer or anybody, to go lengths of that nature to have somebody sign a report that was not his or hers,” Rice said.

The lawyers for WCDOC and Grant are now alleging that Officer Grant did not tell the truth at his deposition. That would be perjury and is extremely serious. There appear to be many moving parts to this case.

After the McNulty’s death, the state’s Commission of Corrections, a panel of regulators overseeing all New York jails, issued a scathing report concluding that he might have been saved had jail medical staff not ignored obvious signs of cardiac distress, NBC News 4 reported.

In court filings, both Westchester County and Correct Care Solutions denied Rashad McNulty received deficient medical care while incarcerated.

After learning that one of Grant’s original reports describing the death had not been turned over as evidence in the wrongful death case, Rice filed a letter with the court demanding Westchester County cough up the original document and asking the judge to impose penalties if it turns out jail employees destroyed or disposed of it.

“We’re going to hold those who did this accountable to the fullest extent,” Rice said.

Hours after the I-Team reached out, a lawyer for Westchester county and its jail medical provider filed a letter with the court expressing concern the publicizing of Grant’s deposition could taint the jury pool, and suggesting there had been a misunderstanding that would be cleared up by Wednesday.

“There is no ‘missing report,'” said the letter.

WDOC by Black Westchester Magazine on Scribd

Defendants are directed to produce the following witnesses: Corrections Officer Grant; Assistant Warden Francis Delgrosso; Captain Walter Moccio; Sgt. George Kosmogiannis; Sgt. Paul Cusma; Sgt. Dominick Pietranico; Officer John Houston; Deputy Commissioner Wanda D. Smithson; and union representative, to whom Grant spoke before declining to sign the Special Report labeled Pl.’s Exh. 10, to be identified. The case has been adjourned for an Evidentiary Hearing set for March 2, 2017 at 10:00 AM in Courtroom 520, 300 Quarropas Street, White Plains, NY, before Magistrate Judge Lisa Margaret Smith.

Stay tuned to Black Westchester Magazine for more on this developing story.