RIKERS ISLAND INMATE SENTENCED TO NINE YEARS IN PRISON FOR ASSAULTING JAIL PHYSICIAN; TAKING PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT HOSTAGE

 

Defendant Pleaded Guilty to Kidnapping

 Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark announced that a Rikers Island inmate has been sentenced to nine years in prison for assaulting a Rikers Island Medical Clinic physician, taking a physician assistant hostage, and threatening to take another physician hostage, in three separate events.

 District Attorney Clark said, “Medical staff on Rikers Island offer essential services to defendants awaiting trial. We must do all we can to make sure they are working in a safe environment, while caring for the incarcerated. The defendant attacked, kept hostage, and threatened workers whose job was to take care of him, and he will spend nearly a decade behind bars for his brutal actions.”

 District Attorney Clark said the defendant Peter Rodriguez, 31, was sentenced on May 4, 2022 by Bronx Supreme Court Justice Ralph Fabrizio to nine years in prison and two-and-a-half years of post-release supervision. The defendant pleaded guilty to second-degree Kidnapping on April 11, 2022.

 According to the investigation, on December 13, 2018, in the Main Medical Clinic in the George R. Vierno Center in Rikers Island, the defendant attacked a doctor, who was treating him. The doctor suffered multiple muscle tears after Rodriguez pulled on his arm. The defendant then threw a chair at the doctor while the physician attempted to escape the assault.

 On January 16, 2018, in the Main Medical Clinic in the George R. Vierno Center, the defendant was receiving treatment from a second doctor. Rodriguez put that doctor in a headlock and threatened to take him hostage.

 On September 24, 2019, at the Building 11 Mini-Clinic at the George R. Vierno Center, the defendant was being treated by a physician assistant. While receiving treatment, the defendant barricaded the clinic door, threatened to blow up the room with oxygen tanks, and threated to chew off the physician assistant’s face. The stand-off lasted approximately two hours.

 District Attorney Clark also thanked the Department of Correction Intelligence Bureau, specifically Correction Officer Investigator Cecil Phillips, for their assistance.