Thinking He Owed $25,000, A Man Spent 5 Months In Rikers. He Only Owed $2.

[demmiblue]

Source: Think Progress

Unable to pay $25,000 to bail himself out, a Queens resident languished in New York City’s notoriously overcrowded and abusive Rikers Island jail for approximately five months. According to court documents, he should’ve only paid $2 for bail and been released after one week.

Aitabdel Salem, an immigrant from Algeria, was detained in November 2014 for fighting a cop who arrested him for theft at a clothing store. He was locked away at Rikers because he was unable to pay the $25,000 bail amount. After his first week behind bars, however, prosecutors on the case were unable to indict him and he no longer owed thousands of dollars. To be released, Salem only had to chalk up two, $1 bail payments for unrelated mischief and tampering charges.

His lawyer, Stephen Pokart, never told him. And when Salem was eventually released in May 2015, he also missed his arraignment because of a court date mix-up. He was subsequently charged with bail jumping, jailed, and slapped with $30,000 for the officer assault.

“(Salem) was shocked and dismayed and frustrated that his case was unconscionably mishandled and there was no communication by his attorney telling him his bail was $2 which he could have made at any moment,” Glenn Hardy, one of Salem’s new attorneys, said at a recent court hearing.

In reality, Pokart’s failure is representative of New York City’s broken bail system.

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/06/01/3783711/2-dollar-bail/

[Stuckinthebush]

1. It sounds like his lawyer played a major role in this

He should be investigated by the Bar.