NYPD cop accused of being Chinese agent makes third bid for release on bond

By Robert E. KesslerRobert.Kessler@newsday.comFebruary 4, 2021

A New York City police officer from Williston Park, accused of being an agent of Communist China, is making his third bid to be released on bond.

His lawyer, John Carman, contends Baimadajie Angwang is subject to inhumane conditions at the federal jail in Brooklyn while Carman has been unable to mount an adequate defense due to the information he is getting from prosecutors.

Carman, of Garden City, says in papers filed in federal court that his client is enduring "living conditions that we would consider a violation of human rights if he were incarcerated by the PRC [People’s Republic of China]."

While acknowledging that the coronavirus pandemic has "created unforeseen" challenges to the jail and legal system, Carman says his client, also a former Marine and an Army reservist, is not getting adequate health care. He said Angwang suffers from bloody discharge from his ears and is at risk for catching the virus since a number of inmates and employees there have had it and he is locked in his cell most of the time.

Carmen says he has almost no access to his client to prepare a defense and while the government has provided several terabytes of information from his client’s electronic devices, it is unindexed and "trying to access it is akin to walking through a 100,000 square foot warehouse in the dark."

Previously, both a federal judge and an appeals court panel in Manhattan turned down Angwang’s application for bail.

In his latest motion, Carman says he has doubled Angwang’s proposed bail package from $1 million to $2 million, and added four more people who will guarantee the bail to the nine who already have. Those includes several of Angwang’s former Marine comrades.

Carman said a hearing on Angwang’s latest request for bond is scheduled for Feb. 12.

John Marzulli, spokesman for federal prosecutors in the Eastern District, declined to comment.

Justin Long, a spokesman, for the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, said in a statement that officials there don't comment on matters being litigated or specific inmates' conditions.

Long said that the federal Bureau of Prisons’ policy provides inmates with health services "in a manner consistent with accepted community standards for a correctional environment" and has "taken swift and effective action in response to the Coronavirus."