The FBI and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have opened a criminal investigation into the death on an MDC Brooklyn inmate in solitary confinement.
Godfrie Cole, 25, died in the special housing unit of the troubled Sunset Park jail on July 21. Correction officers found pills in his cell, and authorities initially suspected a drug overdose, sources familiar with the case said.
The probe will likely focus on how he got access to those drugs, and if anyone — a correction officer, fellow inmate or someone else —gave them to him, sources said.
Federal prosecutors acknowledged the investigation in a court filing Wednesday night, as they asked a judge to deny Cole’s lawyers’ request to hold a hearing with Bureau of Prisons officials on his death.
“As that investigation is ongoing, the government is not able to publicly reveal what it has learned regarding the circumstances of Mr. Cole’s death at this time without compromising the integrity of the investigation,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashleigh Atasoy, wrote to Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Joan Azrack.
The Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. (Gardiner Anderson for New York Daily News)
“Insofar as defense counsel requests a hearing to determine what BOP knows about the cause of Mr. Cole’s death and the steps it has taken to investigate Mr. Cole’s passing, that request is both misplaced — BOP is not in a position to determine either the cause of death or conduct a criminal investigation — and would, again, interfere with the government’s ongoing criminal investigation.”
Atasoy wrote that the BOP is not part of the investigation team. She also argued that because the government plans to withdraw its indictment against Cole, his lawyers have no legal basis to request a hearing.
“The proper mechanism for the defendant’s family to pursue information about the circumstances of his death is via a separate civil action,” Atasoy wrote.
Cole was sentenced to four years in April for a convenience store robbery in the Bronx, and the Manhattan Federal Court judge in that case requested he be placed in a medical facility to get mental health treatment.
But he remained in MDC Brooklyn because of a pending Brooklyn case involving an alleged assault on another inmate.
Godfrie Cole, 25. (Courtesy of Family)
His lawyers with the Federal Defenders declined comment Tuesday, as did a spokesman for Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella.
After Cole’s death, his lawyers, Siobhan Atkins and Benjamin Yaster, told the Daily News, “Mr. Cole’s senseless death shows that MDC still cannot be trusted to protect the health and lives of its inmate population, even in its most secure areas.”
Cole’s death is the second this year at MDC Brooklyn. Carlos Alberto Guerrero Mercado, 47, was found hanging in his cell on April 18. Mercado was one of 37 Mexican citizens shipped to the U.S. in January to face narcoterrorism and cartel-related charges.
The jail, which houses alleged CEO-killer Luigi Mangione and ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, is notorious for its dire conditions and violence — including two stabbing murders in the summer of 2024.
MDC Brooklyn is New York City’s only active federal jail. The Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan was shut down in 2021, two years after sex fiend financier Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself there.