In the wake of a Village Voice report on violence at a troubled city jail, city and state child welfare authorities should investigate whether adolescents are being abused there, a former high ranking Correction Department official says.

"I'm not just talking about the Administration for Children's Service, but the state Office of Children and Families, too," says Edward Gavin, who served key roles in both Correction and ACS and now runs his own private investigation firm. "It's inadequate guardianship, it's child abuse and neglect, inasmuch as it's an unsafe condition for children, and it's medical neglect, if they aren't being given medical attention in a timely manner, which is being alleged."

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Reacting to the last week's Voice's cover story on violence in the city jails, the correction officers union president, Norman Seabrook, criticized the stewardship of jails commissioner Dora Schriro.

In an interview at his downtown Manhattan office, Seabrook says Schriro's leadership is responsible for a rise in the number of his members sent to hospitals with injuries caused by inmates--including 96 officers so far this year--and a decline in morale among officers. He also said she has cut too many staff posts.

"My officers continue to be brutalized by inmates," Seabrook says. "Unfortunately, correction officers are out of sight and out of mind. If I was commissioner tomorrow, I would fire just about every manager in the department."

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Another teen inmate was seriously injured over the weekend in the Robert N. Davoren Center, where teenagers are housed.

Correction officials confirm that Aunray Stanford, 18, was injured in a struggle with correction officers and taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. He subsequently released and returned to Rikers Island.

The officials did not specify Stanford's injuries, citing policy, but a correction source said he sustained a fractured skull in the incident.

RNDC is the same jail that was the subject of a Village Voice article published last Wednesday about violence at Rikers. In the article, correction sources said violence fueled by a culture of intimidation under the noses of correction officers continues.

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Two senior correction officers were convicted today by a Bronx jury for falsifying a fight report and ordering 14 recruits to cover up the incident back in 2006, authorities said.

The jury deliberated for less than three hours in convicting former assistant deputy warden Gail Lewis and current serving captain Sherman Graham of several counts of falsifying documents.

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The union representing correction officers today blasted Correction Commissioner Dora Schriro's management of the city's jail system.

In an unusual advertisement published in the New York Daily News, the Correction Officers Benevolent Association accused Schriro of slashing security posts but fattening her staff with civilians making more than $100,000 a year.

"We're already cut to the bone," the ad states, decorated with the image of a grim reaper with blood on his scythe. "Let Dora explore somewhere else!"

"A New York City Correction Officer will die because of commissioner Dora Schriro's mismanagement of the Department of Correction," the ad continues.

Update: A DOC spokeswoman disputed the claims in the ad. More after the jump.

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A curious item in the Daily News today details how nine corrections officers were hurt trying to stop the Incredible Hulk an inmate from escaping a room at Rikers Island yesterday. Nine! Daniel Sanchez, 24, who had been charged with murder in the first degree and was caught tampering yesterday with a window in his cell, managed to slip out during a fingerprinting procedure in an office around 6:30 p.m. He was apprehended, but only after three captains and six officers were injured. How did that happen?

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Di Bartolo's Facebook page

Salvatore Di Bartolo, a 48-year old Queens man, was arrested after sending a series of text messages to an NYPD sergeant asking for help in contacting both Mayor Bloomberg and his daughter, Georgina. The Daily News reports that Di Bartolo, a pizza worker, had sent six messages to the sergeant regarding the planning of his fantasy wedding with Georgina. "Two dozen police and federal agents" arrested Di Bartolo in June, and details about the allegations and arrest are being released. Anytime there is a 4:1 police officer and federal agent to text message ratio, you can assume the threat was taken seriously.

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Apparently the Rikers Island visiting rooms were getting "really gross" and "out of control" -- including quickies in front of kids -- when significant others would come to visit their "sex-starved" inmate loved-ones, leading to a strict new dress code. Now, the Daily News reports, women "spilling out of their tight tops, miniskirts or ripped jeans" get put into XXL neon green t-shirts like naughty high schoolers relegated into P.E. clothes for their sartorial crimes. "I have to wear what?" one visiting woman gasped. "You're just trying to make me look bad in front of my man."

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SNL was pretty decent last night. The premise of this sketch is brilliant. "Bitch, you know I got no love for Portugal."

[@_rosiegray]

Back in June 2008, the Voice examined the controversial beating death of a mentally ill inmate in the jail ward at Bellevue Hospital Center. We reported exclusively that Patrick Miller was beaten severely by five correction officers in May 2007, and that beating probably led to his death by heart failure.

The Voice reported that Miller, known also as Jermele Kelly, suffered a mesenteric hemotoma -- an injury similar to what happens when someone is hit by a major league fastball. He was also struck on the sinoatrial node, the nerve in the heart that regulates the heartbeat. Such an injury could have stopped his heart, we reported.

Now, more than three years later, after the Manhattan District Attorney dropped its probe into Miller's death, the Justice Department and the FBI have opened a criminal investigation into the incident, several sources tell the Voice.

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