Drugs, guns and electronics seized during sweep of Brooklyn federal prison where Diddy is being held

NEW YORK — Investigators seized drugs, homemade weapons and electronic devices this week in a “multi-agency operation” aimed at clearing out the troubled New York federal prison where Sean “Diddy” Combs is being held, the Bureau of Prisons said Friday.

The contraband was identified and seized during a multi-agency sweep that began Monday at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. The operation, which lasted throughout the week, involved the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department’s inspector general and other local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

The law enforcement operation was “pre-planned and coordinated to ensure the safety” of the facility’s staff and inmates, the agency said. It was part of a “larger security initiative and not in response to any specific threat or intelligence.”

The purge was unrelated to Combs’ arrest, which increased public interest in the prison. No criminal charges were filed in connection with the cleanup.

Combs’ lawyers have described a host of horrors at the prison, including deplorable conditions, rampant violence and numerous deaths, as they repeatedly tried to free him on bail while he awaits trial next May on sex trafficking charges.

The hip-hop mogul’s arrest and a string of crimes linked to the prison in recent months have brought attention to MDC Brooklyn, leading to increased scrutiny and pressure from the Justice Department and Bureau of Prisons to fix the problems and bring those responsible to justice.

In September, federal prosecutors charged nine inmates in a series of attacks from April to August at the Metropolitan Detention Center, the only federal prison in New York. The charges detail serious safety and security problems at the prison, including charges after two inmates were stabbed to death and another was stabbed in the spine with a homemade ice pick. A corrections officer was also charged with shooting at a vehicle during an unauthorized high-speed chase.

The inmate was charged in October with a murder-for-hire plot in the death of a 28-year-old woman last December outside a New York City nightclub. Prosecutors say the inmate used a contraband cellphone to orchestrate the plot while behind bars awaiting sentencing for leading another shooting several years earlier.

The criminal charges have shed light on the violence and dysfunction plaguing the prison, which houses about 1,200 people, including Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. The total number is down from more than 1,600 in January.

The facility, located in an industrial area on the Brooklyn waterfront, is used primarily for post-arrest detention of people awaiting trial in federal courts in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Other prisoners serve short sentences after conviction.

Those held at the Brooklyn jail have long complained of violence, squalid conditions, severe staffing shortages and widespread drug and other contraband smuggling, some facilitated by staff. At the same time, they say they are often isolated and not allowed to leave their cells for visits, calls, showers or exercise.

Having been denied bail twice, Combs is now asking the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to release him. Negotiations are scheduled for November 4.

Combs’ attorney Mark Agnifilo, who previously sought to have him transferred to a prison in New Jersey, said at the Oct. 10 hearing: “We are making progress on MDC. MDC has been very responsive to us.”

Another of Combs’ attorneys, Anthony Ricco, later told reporters outside the courthouse: “He’s fine. This is a difficult circumstance. He tries to make the best of the situation.”

But Ricco added: “No one has agreed to stay in prison yet.”