Rikers Inmate Is 9th Death In NYC's Jails This Year: Advocates

QUEENS, NY — A Rikers Island inmate is the ninth New Yorker to die in the city's jails this year, advocates said.

Manesh Kunwar, 27, died Thursday inside the troubled jail — just eight days after he entered custody on a robbery charge, the New York Daily News first reported and jail officials confirmed.

The death of Kunwar, who suffered from mental illness, showed the jails are no place in need of care, advocates with The Legal Aid Society argued.

"Mr. Kunwar’s case yet again highlights the harm of incarceration in lieu of treatment," a statement from the group read. "If our client had access to the services he needed and stable housing, today’s tragedy could have been avoided."

Department of Correction officials confirmed Kunwar was found unresponsive Thursday morning and pronounced dead at 6:20 a.m. They declined to confirm the inmate's identity until family could be notified.

The death came just hours before a federal watchdog blasted city officials for letting alarming conditions in jails only worsen since the last damning report.

"It appears the unsafe and dangerous conditions in the jails, characterized by unprecedented rates of use of force and violence, have become normalized despite the fact that it is clearly abnormal," the independent federal monitor wrote in a new report.

Advocates quickly piggybacked on the monitor's report and argued it showed the need for a federal takeover of Rikers and the city's jails.

"The neutral court monitor's report demonstrates that this Administration has no commitment or capacity to safeguard the lives of people in City custody, and cannot be trusted to give truthful information about the violence and injuries in the jails," Legal Aid advocates said in a statement. "The death today of 27-year-old Manish Kunwar at Rikers Island underscores the gravity of this abdication of responsibility."

Kunwar is at least the 28th person to die in the city's jail under Mayor Eric Adams, advocates said.

Prosecutors accused Kunwar of using a knife to rob a man of $1,200 in Corona during 2022, the Daily News reported. Kunwar didn't show up for a trial because he had a substance abuse relapse and hopped from a Baltimore psychiatric facility to Delaware, the report states.

He was extradited back into city custody after he called 911 in Delaware because he was suicidal, the Daily News reported.