Prometheus 6

Yes, I'm taking credit for reminding the Times about the abuse of Muslim prisoners in Brooklyn. So what if I have no proof? It meets the Bushista standard of proof. Though The Times isn't who should be paying attention…

Seven years ago, Raymond L. Cotton was a central figure in a federal prison scandal so big it had a cinematic name: Operation Badfellas. He was one of 12 guards accused by the government of turning a federal jail in Brooklyn into a Mafia social club where, in exchange for bribes, mob inmates could dine on smuggled-in manicotti while plotting crimes with their associates.

Unlike all the other guards arrested in the scandal, Mr. Cotton, then president of his union local, never lost his job. (The bribery charges against him were dropped after the government's chief witness was accused in an unrelated drug case.)

Now once again, he is a central figure in a ballooning prison scandal at the same place, the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. But while he was accused before of supplying Absolut vodka, pasta and garlic to criminals, now he is accused in a lawsuit of denying food, phone calls and medical care to abused Muslim detainees, and of physically humiliating them in ways that resemble the treatment of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers facing court-martial.

Once again, despite a blistering Justice Department report about widespread physical abuse at the Brooklyn detention center, Mr. Cotton remains on the job. Yesterday morning, he answered the phone at his office, where, as "Counselor Cotton," he is the chief liaison between detainees and the outside world.