A correction officer found guilty by a jury last May of falsifying suicide prevention records in 2021 during a surge in jail suicides escaped jail time Friday, though prosecutors had recommended she serve a year behind bars.
Vinette Tucker-Frederick, 43, remains suspended without pay in the Correction Department after her conviction on 75 counts of tampering with public records, identity theft and official misconduct, officials said.
“During the growing crisis of inmate suicides in 2021, and apparently amid pressure to increase the number of officers taking a suicide prevention course, the defendant directed a group of officers to take the training for 74 of their colleagues,” District Attorney Darcel Clark said.
“This was a callous disregard for correction officers’ duty to care for those in custody.”
Jocelyn Strauber, commissioner of the Department of Investigation, said Tucker-Frederick’s subterfuge enabled officers to skip training viewed as key to preventing suicides in the jails by instructing them how to spot detainees who may need attention.
The nine-year veteran was assigned to the Anne M. Kross Center. She has been suspended without pay since she was indicted by a Bronx Grand Jury on June 23, 2023.
She was convicted at trial on May 15 by a Bronx jury.
Judge Timothy Lewis handed down Friday’s sentence which ignored the prosecutors’ recommendation of one year in jail. DOC spokeswoman Annais Morales said she remained suspended without pay.
Tucker-Frederick was a control room officer in the Spring of 2021, during a year which saw a spate of six suicides in the jails. Officers were ordered to take a refresher training on stopping suicides via computer.
Tucker-Frederick, who controlled the assignments of officers, was under pressure from above to increase the then-low percentage of officers who had gotten the training, The News previously reported. Just 5% of officers had taken the training, The News reported.
Tucker-Frederick directed a number of them to take the training posing as 74 other officers who were on leave. She gave her group of training takers the persona identification and log-in information for the missing officers.
None of the 74 officers were aware their names were being used, The News previously reported.
DOC’s electronic training records then recorded the 74 officers had taken the training when they had not.
