Rikers officer plants weapon in inmate’s cell, doesn’t realize his own body cam caught crime: DA
A Rikers Island correction officer didn’t realize his body cam was on — and filmed himself planting a pointed shard of Plexiglas in an inmate’s cell and then pretending he found it, officials say.
Dionisio Rosario, 33, has been charged with four counts of first-degree falsifying business records, six counts of second-degree falsifying business records and two counts of official misconduct, according to a statement from the Bronx District Attorney’s Office on Friday, when it announced the indictment against the suspect.
Rosario — who has worked in the city’s Department of Corrections for seven years — unintentionally engaged his camera while “conducting a search inside of Robert N. Davoren Center” and getting into a scrape with an inmate, the DA’s office said.
The officer was ‘involved in a use of force with an inmate” during the search, authorities said. After the tussle, the staffer was caught on his own body-worn camera grabbing the sharpened 4-inch object and entering the inmate’s cell, they said.
He then placed the sharpened plexiglass underneath “a piece of paper by the sink area,” an investigation by the DA’s office allegedly found.
“The defendant is seen searching other areas of the cell before coming back to the sink area, where he removed the sharpened object from where he had previously planted it,” the press release said.
Rosario then reported that he had “recovered” the weapon by the sink area and that it had been in the inmate’s hand, the DA’s Office said.
District Attorney Darcel Clark condemned the officer’s alleged actions, saying, “There have been too many brutal slashings of inmates and staff inside Rikers Island, and for a Correction Officer to allegedly plant a 4-inch, pointed shard of plexiglass in an inmate’s cell and then pretend he found it is unconscionable and absurd.”
In August, an inmate was charged with stabbing a mental-health clinician in the face with a “makeshift dagger” in the jail.
The clinician was interviewing another inmate when Claude White attacked him from behind with a metal shank, prosecutors alleged.
The victim was taken to the hospital with puncture wounds and “blunt force injuries to his chest,” the DA’s office said.
Manhattan prosecutors have called for a federal takeover that would prevent city leaders from handling reforms inside the jail system.
US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams has said the jailhouse has been in “crisis for years” and that there has been a “collective failure with deep roots, spanning multiple mayoral administrations and DOC commissioners.”
Mayor Eric Adams resisted the idea, saying he was the best man for the job.
Rosario is expected back in court Dec. 19.
