LIC Inmate Dies Of Coronavirus 6 Weeks Before Release Date

LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — The inmate who died last week of the new coronavirus inside a Long Island City prison was exactly six weeks away from his release date, records show.

Leonard Carter, 60, was due to be released from the Queensboro Correctional Facility in late May, according to state corrections department records.

Instead, on April 14, he became the first inmate inside the minimum-security prison to die of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Carter was sentenced to 25 years to life on a second-degree murder charge in 1996, records show.

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“It is a horrifying and preventable tragedy that Leonard Carter passed away from COVID-19 a mere six weeks from his release date and having been already granted parole,” Katie Schaffer, the director of advocacy and organizing at the Center for Community Alternatives, told the New York Daily News.

“For those within a year of release and those — like Mr. Carter — who have already been granted parole, there is no legitimate argument for making people complete these sentences, only a hunger for maximum punishment that will increase the death toll of this pandemic," Schaffer said.

Schaffer was among a group of advocates who rallied last week outside the prison to demand that Gov. Andrew Cuomo release the individuals incarcerated inside, all of whom are serving the last 120 days of their sentences, to protect them from the spread of the virus.

That same coalition plans to hold a vigil for Carter Thursday morning over the video-conferencing platform Zoom.

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