More than half the inmates at Pennsylvania federal prison have covid

Atif Malik is serving an eight-year prison sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution at Loretto in Cambria County for a nonviolent crime.

In April, he filed his own motion seeking compassionate release because of a variety of pre-existing health conditions and the increasing risk of covid-19 spreading in the facility.

Although the Bureau of Prisons agreed Malik could be released on Oct. 1, he was not. His attorney, Timothy Parlatore, said no official reason was given.

Parlatore filed another request on Monday, citing the increasing number of covid cases at the minimum-security facility.

On Tuesday, Malik tested positive.

“He now has it, which, to me, is an abomination because this is a completely avoidable scenario,” Parlatore said.

As of Wednesday afternoon, according to the BOP, more than half of the inmate population at Loretto had tested positive for the rapid-spreading, highly contagious novel coronavirus — that is 538 inmates and 22 staff members. The prison has a capacity of 860.

According to BOP spokesman Justin Long, Loretto has been doing mass testing of the inmate population — 859 inmates have been tested.

“However, the majority of the BOP’s positive inmates are asymptomatic and healthy,” he wrote in an email. “The efficacy of the BOP’s mitigation strategies can be seen in the very low number of hospitalized inmates.”

Loretto ranked second in inmates testing positive throughout the federal correctional system, behind only FCI-Englewood in Littleton, Colo., which reported 540 positives on Wednesday.

Across the system on Wednesday, 6,447 federal inmates and 1,662 staff members have tested positive. Nearly 23,000 inmates and more than 2,000 staff members have recovered, BOP reported.

There have been 153 inmates who have died from covid, along with two staffers, the agency said. The Bureau of Prisons has a total population of 124,616 inmates and nearly 14,000 staff.

Parlatore said that Loretto, which has a dormitory style setting, “is a perfect incubator for the virus.”

In a motion seeking release, Malik, who is a physician, said that he shared his 80-square-foot cell with five other men. They also share bathroom facilities and computers.

His medical history includes a heart attack in 2012, two stents, diabetes, coronary artery disease and hypertension.

Malik, 51, was convicted and has served about two years in prison.

Malik was found guilty at trial in 2017 of several charges related to his medical practice in Maryland. They include conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback and Travel act, as well as 12 counts of soliciting and receiving illegal health care-related kickbacks, health care fraud and false statements.

He had no previous criminal history and since his incarceration has tutored GED students and taught multiple courses, he wrote in his petition.

Parlatore said his client’s family arrived to pick him up from Loretto on the morning of Oct. 1 after being told he would be released that day to home confinement based on the CARES Act, which authorized compassionate release for some low-risk, non-violent offenders.

However, Malik’s family was told then he would not be released. Initially, they were told that his probation officer said his home was not acceptable. But, Parlatore said he then spoke with the officer who said it was cleared.

The attorney suspects that it is the prosecutor in Malik’s case who objects to his release, but no official explanation has been provided.

As Parlatore saw the numbers at Loretto increasing, he submitted a brief to the court again seeking compassionate relief, citing the recent surge in positive covid cases in the prison.

“The next morning, I looked, and the numbers doubled,” Parlatore said. “And a couple hours later, it almost doubled again.”

He said there is no reason Malik wasn’t released.

“They continued to hold him until he got sick,” Parlatore said.

On Tuesday, Malik told his attorney he began to experience shortness of breath, a headache, fatigue and muscle weakness.

He had received no treatment, Parlatore said.

“Being a physician, he predicted this a couple weeks ago. ‘Once they get to a certain level, it will spread uncontrollably,’ ” he said Malik told him.

Parlatore said his client also told him that there were boxes of face shields and PPE in the prison that were never passed out.

The BOP spokesman said that FCI Loretto is sufficiently staffed and that PPE has been passed out to both staff and inmates.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Long said, the bureau has implemented a comprehensive management approach, including screening inmates and staff, limiting transfers among inmates, as well as movement within the facility.

Parlatore has asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia L. Dodge for an expedited hearing on Malik’s request for release. On Wednesday, she ordered the U.S. Attorney’s Office to file its response to the petition by Dec. 16.

“He is sick. He is high risk,” Parlatore said. “Our hope is that this can be resolved quickly enough before any further damage is done.”

The attorney’s immediate concern, he said, is when his client gets treatment.

“Are they going to get him medical care? Or only take him to a treatment facility when it’s so bad it’s too late?” Parlatore asked. “If it doesn’t turn out well, I think the leadership at Loretto will have a lot to answer for — certainly civilly, if not criminally.”

The BOP spokesman said that all inmates who test positive are isolated and provided with medical care. If their conditions rises to the need for acute care, they will be transferred to a hospital setting — either at the facility or in the community.

According to the BOP, the agency is updating its covid-19 webpage each afternoon.

“As testing resources have become more widely available, we are testing our inmate population more broadly, which is helping us to quickly identify and isolate positive cases to rapidly flatten the curve when outbreaks occur,” Long wrote in his email. “As a result of our expanded testing capabilities and the BOP’s robust pandemic plan, we currently have significantly more staff and inmates recovered from COVID-19 than are positive.”

Other federal facilities in Pennsylvania also have high numbers of infection.

They include FCI- McKean in Lewis Run, with 167 positive inmates; Canaan United States Penitentiary in Waymart, with 96; and FCI Allenwood near Lewisburg, with 46.