A Rikers Island inmate who threatened to kill himself was found dead yesterday after correction officers failed to put him on suicide watch, the New York Times reports. Rikers Island remains a brutal hellhole.

Jail records obtained by the Times show that a mental health clinician visited the inmate, Fabian Cruz, on Wednesday afternoon. Cruz threatened to harm himself, and the clinician asked that he be moved to a mental observation unit "as a precautionary measure against acts of self-harm or accidental death," the report said. He was never moved.

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24 hours later, Cruz was found dead in his cell, a bedsheet wrapped around his neck. "Patient most likely committed suicide," an internal report said. "He hanged himself."

About two weeks earlier, Cruz had plead guilty to one felony count of attempted first-degree criminal sexual act. Prosecutors alleged that he sexually abused his girlfriend's 14-year-old daughter over a period of three years. According to the Times, Cruz was going to be sentenced on January 12 to five years in prison.

Rikers Island is such a medieval place—thanks in large part to one police union chief—that federal prosecutors recently announced plans to sue New York City over it.

[Photo credit: AP Images]