unctrld1
07-18-2008, 03:21 AM
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/07/16/2008-07-16_jail_snitch_kept_log_of_favors_for_copsl.html
The Picture below, labeled "snitch" by the NY Daily News is a Pic of Mariah Lopez
Jail snitch kept log of favors for cop-slay suspect Lee Woods
BY SCOTT SHIFREL, BARBARA ROSS and ALISON GENDAR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Wednesday, July 16th 2008, 11:40 PM
Mariah Lopez
Mariah Lopez
Lee Woods Bales for News
Lee Woods
The jailhouse tipster who blew the whistle on an accused cop-killer getting special treatment on Rikers Island said she has no regrets for diming him out.
Two correction officers were fired for sneaking booze, cigarettes, marijuana and rolling paper to accused cop-killer Lee Woods. Another officer, a woman, is under suspicion of having sex with Woods and giving him contraband.
"The one question I will never be able to answer is why," said Mariah Lopez, 23, a pre-op transsexual whose cell was next to Woods' in Rikers' punitive segregation unit.
"I have no idea why they did what they did. Some people in the jail suggested it was for money. I never saw any [cash] pass. The guards, they got no big payout. They were stupid and backward. They did it for ... giggles," she said.
Woods, the accused getaway driver in the 2007 murder of Police Officer Russel Timoshenko, was in lockdown up to 23 hours a day for bad behavior in previous jail stints.
Lopez spent months in the same unit as Woods. She was sitting in jail, in the male unit, until she made $10,000 bail on a charge of stalking and attacking an ex-boyfriend.
She was bailed out last November, but was rearrested in April on charges of stalking her ex, court records showed. She was then placed in the cell right next to Woods'.
She was known at Rikers as someone who has sued - often successfully - the Correction Department, the NYPD and other city agencies over how they treat "trans-girls."
"Woods was very trans-phobic. He'd see me and say things like he would get me killed. So I started writing inmate statements, telling Correction what I saw. For a long time, they ignored it," she said.
In her latest stint at Rikers, Lopez said she kept a log of the special favors she said Woods was getting, noting the time and date when she smelled marijuana smoke wafting from his cell or showing off shivs, lighters and cigarettes.
"They turned a blind eye to whatever he did. There was a specific time in May when he brandished a shank, a lighter, a scalpel and then lit a fire outside his cell with the lighter," she said.
She claims officers snatched her logbook, and even handed some ripped-out pages to Woods. After that, she said, jail higher-ups wanted more information about her complaints. She was stunned when high-ranking supervisors searched Woods' cell June 24.
"I saw them bring out shanks. Everything else they put in an envelope. I heard that it was weed and rolling paper and cigarettes and a Hennessy bottle cap," Lopez said.
The next day, correction officials fired Officers Auguste Durand, 31, and Michael Santiago, 24.
Correction spokesman Stephen Morello declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.
"We have a strict policy of zero tolerance for staff who give up their integrity, and clear rules against preferential treatment of any inmate by any staff person. That is why we have fired two officers in this case."
Woods said he knew Lopez dimed him out.
"It's all bull----. It's all garbage, it's all lies. Lopez made it all up."
A third officer, Kadessha Mullgrav, was transferred amid allegations that she traded sexual favors with Woods. She also may have slipped him contraband that he swallowed, and that set off a metal detector June 25.
"I didn't see what happened at the magnetometer," Lopez said. Mullgrav's husband said she did nothing wrong.
Lopez said she has offered to work with the Bronx district attorney and any other organization working on the ongoing investigation.
"This is a cop-killer. I would tell the guards, 'OK, I'm transgender. Woo hoo. But this guy would kill you, rob your mother, that's what you have to remember."
agendar@nydailynews.com
The Picture below, labeled "snitch" by the NY Daily News is a Pic of Mariah Lopez
Jail snitch kept log of favors for cop-slay suspect Lee Woods
BY SCOTT SHIFREL, BARBARA ROSS and ALISON GENDAR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Wednesday, July 16th 2008, 11:40 PM
Mariah Lopez
Mariah Lopez
Lee Woods Bales for News
Lee Woods
The jailhouse tipster who blew the whistle on an accused cop-killer getting special treatment on Rikers Island said she has no regrets for diming him out.
Two correction officers were fired for sneaking booze, cigarettes, marijuana and rolling paper to accused cop-killer Lee Woods. Another officer, a woman, is under suspicion of having sex with Woods and giving him contraband.
"The one question I will never be able to answer is why," said Mariah Lopez, 23, a pre-op transsexual whose cell was next to Woods' in Rikers' punitive segregation unit.
"I have no idea why they did what they did. Some people in the jail suggested it was for money. I never saw any [cash] pass. The guards, they got no big payout. They were stupid and backward. They did it for ... giggles," she said.
Woods, the accused getaway driver in the 2007 murder of Police Officer Russel Timoshenko, was in lockdown up to 23 hours a day for bad behavior in previous jail stints.
Lopez spent months in the same unit as Woods. She was sitting in jail, in the male unit, until she made $10,000 bail on a charge of stalking and attacking an ex-boyfriend.
She was bailed out last November, but was rearrested in April on charges of stalking her ex, court records showed. She was then placed in the cell right next to Woods'.
She was known at Rikers as someone who has sued - often successfully - the Correction Department, the NYPD and other city agencies over how they treat "trans-girls."
"Woods was very trans-phobic. He'd see me and say things like he would get me killed. So I started writing inmate statements, telling Correction what I saw. For a long time, they ignored it," she said.
In her latest stint at Rikers, Lopez said she kept a log of the special favors she said Woods was getting, noting the time and date when she smelled marijuana smoke wafting from his cell or showing off shivs, lighters and cigarettes.
"They turned a blind eye to whatever he did. There was a specific time in May when he brandished a shank, a lighter, a scalpel and then lit a fire outside his cell with the lighter," she said.
She claims officers snatched her logbook, and even handed some ripped-out pages to Woods. After that, she said, jail higher-ups wanted more information about her complaints. She was stunned when high-ranking supervisors searched Woods' cell June 24.
"I saw them bring out shanks. Everything else they put in an envelope. I heard that it was weed and rolling paper and cigarettes and a Hennessy bottle cap," Lopez said.
The next day, correction officials fired Officers Auguste Durand, 31, and Michael Santiago, 24.
Correction spokesman Stephen Morello declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.
"We have a strict policy of zero tolerance for staff who give up their integrity, and clear rules against preferential treatment of any inmate by any staff person. That is why we have fired two officers in this case."
Woods said he knew Lopez dimed him out.
"It's all bull----. It's all garbage, it's all lies. Lopez made it all up."
A third officer, Kadessha Mullgrav, was transferred amid allegations that she traded sexual favors with Woods. She also may have slipped him contraband that he swallowed, and that set off a metal detector June 25.
"I didn't see what happened at the magnetometer," Lopez said. Mullgrav's husband said she did nothing wrong.
Lopez said she has offered to work with the Bronx district attorney and any other organization working on the ongoing investigation.
"This is a cop-killer. I would tell the guards, 'OK, I'm transgender. Woo hoo. But this guy would kill you, rob your mother, that's what you have to remember."
agendar@nydailynews.com