Being mistreated by DC jail

Magistrate judge says alleged WHCD attacker being mistreated by DC jail

Zia Faruqui said Cole Allen’s conditions were markedly harsher than those faced by Jan. 6 defendants.

By Kyle Cheney

A federal magistrate judge tore into officials from the Washington, D.C. jail on Monday for their treatment of the man who allegedly attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said Cole Allen’s placement in severe lockdown — including a temporary suicide watch that required 24-hour-a-day placement in a padded, lighted cell without access to phone calls, books, religious material or recreational time — appeared to be unfairly punitive and not based on any known medical assessment.

Faruqui, who played a role in hundreds of cases stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, said Allen was being treated more harshly than those defendants, despite similar allegations of political violence aimed at members of Congress and government leaders. Those defendants were housed in a less restrictive wing of the jail known as the Central Treatment Facility, he noted, and were given significant accommodations during their detention.

“The Jan. 6 defendants all were moved to the CTF,” Faruqui said. “Pardons may erase convictions but they do not erase history … He’s being treated differently than anyone I’ve ever observed.”

Faruqui emphasized that despite grave charges against Allen, the court and jail are still supposed to presume his innocence, particularly because he has no criminal history. He apologized to Allen, saying it was partly the court’s role to ensure that someone detained while awaiting trial was subjected to fair and dignified conditions. Faruqui ordered D.C. jail officials to update him by Tuesday morning on when and whether Allen would be moved into less restrictive conditions.

Though it houses federal inmates, the D.C. jail is run by local officials who make determinations about the housing status of criminal defendants detained pretrial and those serving sentences. Tony Towns, the general counsel for the D.C. Department of Corrections, said decisions about Allen’s housing were made with an eye toward his safety, not to be punitive.

Faruqui’s comparison to Jan. 6 defendants dredges up a fraught aspect of the four-year prosecution of people charged and convicted of breaching the Capitol that day. The nationwide manhunt began during the height of the Covid-era, with severe housing restrictions for all inmates in the D.C. jail.

Jan. 6 defendants routinely lamented their conditions in the jail, noting that they were subjected to similarly severe lockdowns, limits on their access to lawyers, challenges in reviewing evidence of their criminal cases and concerns about access to medical care.

Their complaints — bolstered by a large network of supporters — ushered in substantial changes to jail operations. Inmates were given freer access to evidence on jail-issued tablets and some were accommodated for gluten-free or vegan dietary needs. One Jan. 6 defendant’s complaints about unmet medical needs prompted a judge to investigate and ultimately hold the jail in contempt of court, forcing changes. And substandard conditions forced some inmates to temporarily be relocated to facilities in neighboring states.

Faruqui, however, said Allen appeared to be facing restrictions that no Jan. 6 defendant ever did.

“He can be both kept safe and treated with dignity. Right now, it’s not working. I think it’s legally deficient and ultimately if the DOC can’t do it, I’ll speak to the US attorney’s office. I know they have other facilities they can contract with. If you all cannot handle it, we’re going to have to reassess that with the marshals and the Department of Justice.”

“If we can get someone vegan food, we can get you a bible,” the magistrate judge added.

Prosecutors said little during the hearing except to note that Allen had informed FBI agents the night of the alleged assassination attempt that he hadn’t expected to survive, a detail that the jail might have relied upon to consider him a suicide risk. But Faruqui underscored that the medical professionals disagreed and said he interpreted Allen’s purported remark to be an indication he expected to get shot, not that he was seeking to end his life.

Towns noted that the FBI placed two agents outside Cole’s room during his first two days of detention, a decision he described as unprecedented and reflective of the administration’s heightened concerns about the case.

Faruqui said his overarching worry is that Allen’s case could be a symptom of a much larger problem within the jail.

“What happens,” he wondered, “with the hundreds or thousands of low-profile cases?”