| Edwin Alamo With Asthma Gets
60 Month Sentence After Property Taken While
Quarantine
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
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SDNY COURTHOUSE,
Aug 24 – Edwin Alamo, a
25-year old Bronxite with
asthma incarcerated in lower
Manhattan in the Metropolitan
Correctional Center amid the
Coronavirus pandemic, had an
hour-long bail hearing on
April 7 before U.S. District
Court for the Southern
District of New York Judge
Richard M. Berman.
Then he
had a sentencing on August 24,
after a COVID-19 quarantine in
which all of his belongings
were taken and, it seems,
destroyed.
Alamo could not easily have
been before a more sympathetic
judge. After one of his
relatives described Alamo
trying to get treatment for
asthma at Einstein Hospital in
The Bronx in February 2019,
Judge Berman called the whole
situation heartbreaking and
tragic.
But unlike
for example cooperator Daniel
Hernandez a/k/a Tekashi
#6ix9ine, also with asthma,
and unlike convicted OneCoin
money launderer Mark Scott,
Edwin Alamo was not released.
On June 3,
Alamo appeared by phone before
Judge Berman to plead guilty.
His lawyer Bennett Epstein
said he would prefer video,
but would leave it up to his
client.
Judge
Berman said that video is
better, and said the MCC and
MDC should have rooms for
this, going forward, and for
attorney client meetings.
After a
possible new date of June 15
was offered, Alamo said he
wanted to do it immediately,
to get the ball rolling and
get out of the COVID-filled
jail.
He
recounted that he went to high
school on Jennings Street. He
pled guilty and the earliest
he could be sentenced was July
22.
That didn't
happen. It was moved to August
4, then delayed again due to
COVID-19 quarantine. When
Alamo was allowed to return to
his unit, all of his property
was done, his lawyer said.
Judge
Berman eschewed consecutive
sentencing on the VOSR and
imposed the mandatory minimum,
sixty months. He wished Alamo
well.
Back
on April 7 after Assistant US
Attorney Daniel Wolf
questioned the relative about
the walk-up apartment building
in which Alamo would be
staying, and his failure to
fill his prescription for an
asthma pump (the relative said
he has not health insurance),
the legal standard was not
met.
Judge
Berman found both that Alamo
if released would present a
danger to the community, and a
risk of flight given the
amount of time he faces on
drug courier and other
charges. Recidivism
also, in fairness, was an
issue, perhaps the dispostive
one.
His next
hearing, at which unlike this
one he will perhaps be
present, is set for May 7. The
case is US v. Alamo, 19-cr-640
(Berman).
***
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