Prison official promoted after prisoner in his custody was paralysed after being detained by an officer

A city jail inmate paralyzed from the neck down after several prison guards knocked him down last May is still suffering from quadriplegia at Bellevue Hospital more than a year later — while the official overseeing the jail just got a promotion.

Carlton James, 40, is seeking admission to a halfway house or rehabilitation center to seek treatment, according to sources familiar with the case. He has filed a lawsuit in the Bronx against the Department of Corrections and more than a dozen officers involved.

James — who was a martial arts expert — can now only move his head.

Meanwhile, Ned McCormick, a senior corrections official who managed the Vernon C. Bain Center prison barge where the near-death accident occurred, got a promotion and a raise last month, Department of Corrections documents show.

McCormick was deputy commissioner for facility operations when James was so badly injured that he was placed on a ventilator for two weeks after the fire was extinguished at 11:24 a.m. May 11.

McCormick originally resigned from the $207,635-a-year job in October, months after James was injured.

However, on June 20, he returned to the Department of Corrections and was promoted to deputy commissioner, said spokeswoman Annais Morales.

She added that the new position came with a salary increase of $212,187.

His return and promotion were “very discouraging to the people working here,” another senior prison official, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, told THE CITY.

McCormick declined to comment through the DOC press office.

The same month that McCormick resigned, James’ lawyers sued the city of New York, the DOC and 13 officers who attended the meeting. McCormick was not named in the suit.

The Bronx Supreme Court legal claim alleges that the guards “physically assaulted and beat” James and used excessive force. The case is still in the preliminary stages.

Jason Rubin, James’ civil attorney, declined to comment. Pamela Walker, the court-appointed guardian to oversee James and his estate, declined to comment, citing privacy concerns and the ongoing litigation.

Pain and suffering

Last July, James told THE CITY from his hospital bed that he feared officers would come into his room and assault him again — especially since the Department of Corrections has permanent staffing in Bellevue.

“DOC is here,” he said, adding that he would like to be transferred to another hospital.

He also complained of severe pain and admitted that even crying hurt him as a tear slowly rolled down his cheek.

“Everything hurts,” he said. “I can’t sleep. It’s all nightmares.”

The Vernon Bain Correctional Center floats near Hunts Point in the Bronx, November 14, 2022. Loan: Hiram Alejandro Durán/CITY

The Legal Aid Society has used what happened to James as a recent example of why the DOC should be taken over by a so-called receiver, who would have enormous power to reform the scandal-plagued department.

“The documentation of ongoing violence and chaos — corroborated by the monitor, the city’s own records, and other evidence presented in support of this motion — is overwhelming,” wrote the legal brief, written by attorneys with the Legal Aid Society’s Prisoners’ Rights Project and the law firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel.

“The incarcerated, most of whom are awaiting trial and therefore presumed innocent, live in city jails in a state of fear and despair,” it added in court documents filed last November.

According to court documents, James needed three surgeries following the attack.

Former Corrections Commissioner Louis Molina, who now heads the city’s Department of Administrative Services, has previously defended how corrections officials handled the incident.

His staff indicated that James suffers from spinal stenosis, which makes him more susceptible to serious spinal injuries.

Slow investigation

No officers have been disciplined in connection with the incident, according to multiple sources. An internal department investigation into the matter is ongoing, Morales said.

However, the limitation period for disciplinary penalties is 18 months.

According to body camera footage cited in court documents, officers from the Special Investigative Unit’s Special Investigative Team handcuffed James behind his back and shackled his legs, then moved him to another room in the prison, where his body was violently thrown to the ground.

Two days later, the federal investigator overseeing the department criticized former Commissioner Molina for withholding basic details in the James case.

Steve Martin, a Texas-based federal monitor who has served since 2015, also criticized Molina for withholding information in four other violent encounters involving different detainees, noting that guards threw a handcuffed James off a gurney and onto the floor after the initial attack.

“While the investigation team was lifting and lowering the individual, his head struck a plastic container, the leg of the partition and then the cement floor,” according to Martin’s report. “Blood stains were also visible on the floor under the bench and next to the partition where the arrestee’s head rested on the floor.”

James was then taken to Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, where doctors placed him on a ventilator.

According to Martin’s review, the initial DOC report included a detailed description of the action but did not indicate that James was taken to the hospital.

Martin said his team was notified of what had happened two days later when they received an “external allegation” of inappropriate use of force.