Nassau County Jail oversight board has been dormant for years, records show

Nassau County allowed a jail oversight body to dissolve in violation of the county charter, according to former county officials, records and an inmate’s recent lawsuit.

The seven-member Nassau County Correctional Center Board of Visitors is supposed to investigate detainees’ complaints and grievances and advise the sheriff on ways to improve jail conditions. But there has been no recorded meeting for the past five years, public records show — a period in which the jail has faced multiple lawsuits as well as scrutiny over its holding of ICE detainees.

"They never put it back together again," Helen Meittinis, a former chair and longtime member of the oversight board, said in an interview with Newsday.

Meittinis said she couldn’t remember when the board last met.

County leaders used to ensure the board met regularly, she said, "but nobody's doing that anymore."

Michelle Pettit, also known as Angel Shuler, a Muslim detainee at the Nassau jail who is transitioning from female to male, made the board’s dormancy a central allegation in a $5 million lawsuit filed Aug. 4 in U.S. District Court in Central Islip.

Lawyers for Pettit, whom the lawsuit refers to with she/her pronouns, alleged jail staff have engaged in "various forms of discrimination, harassment, and interference with her ability to practice Islam and denied competent and adequate medical care."

And when Pettit tried to file grievances, the suit claims, jail administrators responded by "front-desking" them — refusing to accept them or throwing them in the trash.

The complaints did not make their way to the Board of Visitors, because, according to the lawsuit, Nassau County "has consistently failed to appoint members" — rendering it ineffective.

A missing board

The lawsuit notes the last public meeting for the board posted on the county website was Jan. 28, 2021, about a year before the end of former County Executive Laura Curran’s term.

Curran, a Democrat defeated by Republican Bruce Blakeman in November 2021, declined to comment on the board’s activity during her tenure.

Asked about the board’s status, Tatum Fox, Blakeman’s deputy county executive for public safety, said in a statement: "This is an independent board, and the frequency of its meetings is within the purview of the chairman and board members."

County spokesperson Chris Boyle provided Newsday with a list of six people he said were current members of the jail oversight board and referred comment to them. He identified the chairperson as Justin Brown, a former Democratic candidate for state and local offices.

Newsday was unable to reach Brown or any of the other people Boyle identified.

Pettit’s Garden City-based lawyer, Sheetal Paul, declined to comment for this story or make Pettit available for an interview.

Pettit, 35, was arrested on Nov. 12, 2024, on charges of driving while impaired by alcohol and third-degree grand larceny for stealing a car that had been left parked and running at a Hilton Garden Inn, according to court records. Pettit pleaded guilty to lesser charges last May and is no longer incarcerated, court records show.

The lawsuit complaint alleges the jail denied Pettit proper gender-affirming care, provided incorrect dosages of testosterone or failed to provide them at all, and "refused" to give Pettit a required soy-free diet, leading to "boils, cysts, abscesses, hot flashes, cold sweats, delirium, confusion, and emotional outbursts."

It also alleges religious discrimination, saying the jail denied Pettit and other Muslim inmates "integral practices of Islam such as meaningful opportunities to congregate for prayer and religious study and adherence to halal restrictions, while non-Muslim inmates enjoy such opportunities on a regular basis."

County officials declined to comment on those allegations.

A troubled history

The jail has faced scrutiny over conditions for years.

In 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation that concluded conditions violated the constitutional rights of inmates because of the "deliberate indifference" to their medical needs. The U.S. Attorney General found in 2002 there was a pattern of excessive force by correctional officers in the jail.

Language mandating the jail oversight board had been written into Nassau County’s charter in 1990. But outside of some activity between 1999 and 2003, roughly coinciding with the federal findings, the board was effectively nonexistent for decades.

In 2012, after a spate of deaths at the facility, the New York Civil Liberties Union sued the county, alleging it had failed to convene the board for years.

In 2013 a New York Supreme Court judge ordered then-County Executive Edward Mangano to appoint members to the board, "consistent with the mandates of the County Charter."

The Board of Visitors appears to have met, at least to some degree, between 2013 and 2021, according to Newsday coverage.

But the only recent mention of the body in county legislative minutes Newsday could locate was a record of a 2022 meeting of the legislature's Public Safety Committee, at which former Democratic Legis. Siela Bynoe questioned county officials about the board's status. 

At that meeting, Fox, the deputy county executive, said the board was active but did not have information on hand about its members or meeting schedule.

Frederick K. Brewington, a Nassau County civil rights attorney, said even when meetings were taking place, the body never truly lived up to its oversight mission.

"It, for lack of a better term, might have been a paper tiger," he said in an interview. "I’m not sure of both its impact and import."

'Not meeting its mandated requirements'

The newest period of inactivity comes as Nassau County’s contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has drawn attention to the jail.

Last year, as part of a deal with the federal government, Blakeman allocated 50 jail cells there for ICE detainees. Since then, thousands of people detained by the agency have passed through the facility.

One detainee, 42-year-old Santos Banegas Reyes, died at the correctional center in September. An official ICE report on the death released earlier this year said Reyes was experiencing alcohol withdrawal.

Elected officials who have visited the facility during this period have largely not raised concerns about conditions in the facility.

But Susan Gottehrer, the director of the Nassau County chapter of the NYCLU, said in a statement conditions in the jail were "very concerning, and there is a dire need for real, independent oversight."

Representatives for Nassau County legislators did not respond to requests for comment.

"I felt that it was not meeting its mandated requirements to keep order and maintain inmate safety at the facility," Bynoe, who is now a state senator, told Newsday of her time in the legislature.

More recently, she said of the board, "I have not heard a peep."