June 5, 2019 | 11:32am | Updated June 5, 2019 | 12:09pm
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday came to the defense of Paul Manafort, arguing against holding President Trump’s former campaign chairman in solitary confinement at Rikers Island jail.
“Paul Manafort is being sent to solitary confinement in my district – Rikers Island. A prison sentence is not a license for gov torture and human rights violations. That‘s what solitary confinement is,” the New York Democrat wrote on Twitter. “Manafort should be released, along with all people being held in solitary.”
Ocasio-Cortez was responding to a report in the New York Times that said Manafort may be transferred from the federal prison in Pennsylvania where he’s serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence to Rikers.
But solitary confinement isn’t the same as being kept in protective custody, which Manafort will be in to separate him from the general population because of his high-profile status.
The report said Manafort would likely be housed in a former prison hospital at the jail or in a newer area of tent-like structures known as “Sprungs” where politicians, celebrities and cop-killers are kept.
The infirmary block includes a day room, and the inmates are not locked in cells during the day.
An inmate in solitary confinement is typically locked in a cell for 22 to 24 hours a day.
The rookie lawmaker has spoken out before against holding people in solitary confinement.
In April, she referred to whistleblower Chelsea Manning being held in solitary, because she refused to testify before a grand jury, as “torture.”
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance indicted Manafort on state mortgage fraud charges in March to ensure he will face prison time in case Trump pardons him for the federal crimes.
Manafort, 70, is expected to be arraigned later this month in Manhattan Supreme Court and could be held in Rikers.
Manafort was convicted last August of bank and tax fraud.