A correction officer at the MDC Brooklyn federal jail who’s accused of chasing a BMW for five miles and shooting and wounding one of its passengers did so as part of an unhinged one-man war on contraband, federal prosecutors charge.
Leon Wilson also cocked his gun and threatened to kill an inmate he suspected of receiving contraband and performed an illegal stop-and-frisk two blocks away from the Sunset Park jail, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors are hoping to include Wilson’s actions before and after the Sept. 4, 2023, shooting at his Brooklyn Federal Court trial later this month “to complete the story of the crime on trial,” according to a Sept. 22 motion.
Just days before the chase and shooting, the 50-year-old Wilson confronted an inmate riding with him in an elevator, “unprompted and in an aggressive manner (and) announced that he would catch all the inmates bringing in contraband,” the feds allege.
He approached that same inmate and another detainee shortly after, telling them he had chased the inmate’s woman friend off the property, the feds allege. Wilson rested his hand on his gun and said that if the woman ever returned to the jail the inmate “would be going to an early funeral because the defendant would put a bullet in the woman’s head,” the feds say.
Some correction officers, including those on perimeter duty, are allowed to carry firearms on the job.
Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News
The Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Metropolitan Detention Center at 80 29th St. in Brooklyn. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)
Wilson got into more confrontations with the inmate from the elevator. In one episode, he argued with the inmate about an area the inmate was responsible for cleaning, accused the inmate of hiding contraband in a garbage can and threatened to hit him with his gun, the feds allege.
When the inmate retorted that the gun shot rubber bullets, Wilson, “to drive his point home,” took out his gun, cocked it and sent a bullet flying from the chamber, the feds allege.
In another episode, Wilson got into a shouting match with the inmate while working on an outdoor guard post, then grabbed the inmate, threw him up against a wall, bent his fingers and arm behind his back and yelled, “I will f—ing kill you!” the feds say.
Wilson was on perimeter duty the day of the early-morning car chase, the feds allege.
He briefly stepped away from his post around 4:30 a.m., getting into a Bureau of Prisons-issued minivan so he could buy a MetroCard at a nearby subway station. When he returned about 12 minutes later, a gray BMW with tinted windows pulled into the staff lot, according to a criminal complaint.
Wilson parked the van across the street and watched the BMW, then drove into the lot and pulled in front of the Beamer. The driver sped off and Wilson gave chase — even though his authority ended once he left the jail property.
He followed the BMW to a spot near the Brooklyn Bridge about five miles away, going 55 mph in a 25-mph zone and running a red light, the feds say.
Wilson fired three bullets at the BMW on Hamilton Ave. near the Gowanus Expressway, striking the rear of the car with each shot, prosecutors charge. One of those bullets hit a male passenger in the back, missing his lungs by about a millimeter, prosecutors allege.
Wilson returned to his post at 5 a.m. When a fellow correction officer asked him what happened, he admitted giving chase to the car but said nothing about opening fire, according to court filings. He never reported the shooting to his supervisors.
He finished his shift and the next day Wilson went back to his anti-smuggling crusade, spotting a man walking onto MDC property with a bag, the feds say.
Wilson got into the van, followed the man for two city blocks off property, then stopped him, the feds allege. He searched the man’s bag and found a green leafy substance, rope, and bottles of medicine, then signed a written statement falsely suggesting he patted the man down on MDC grounds, the feds allege.
That search led to an internal investigation — and when the NYPD notified jail officials that a Bureau of Prisons van was involved in a shooting, Wilson’s supervisors realized he was involved, the feds allege.
Wilson was placed on administrative leave days later and arrested in September 2024. Wilson’s lawyer at the time, Steven Lynch, touted the veteran correction officer’s contraband-busting efforts, saying he was involved in “multiple interventions” and “has really gone above and beyond his duties to intercept narcotics going into the building.”
Defense lawyer Mark DeMarco, who’s representing Wilson as the trial approaches, did not return messages seeking comment.
Smuggling has long been a problem at the troubled federal jail, which has been plagued by violence, horrific conditions and severe staffing shortages for years.
Several now-former correction officers have been caught smuggling in cell phones, phone chargers, drugs and cigarettes.
Detainees behind bars often conspire with accomplices on the outside to “fish” for packages of drugs, cigarettes and cell phones through unguarded windows at the jail.
One scheme, devised by hip-hop podcaster turned convicted murderer Taxstone, real name Darryl Campbell, involved dangling a 50-foot rope from the window of a fourth-floor recreation area in spring 2024, according to prosecutors.
A relative of a high-ranking MS-13 member locked up at MDC tried a similar scheme last December. And a visitor passed 21 ceramic blades in a Doritos bag to a murder-for-hire suspect last October, according to the feds.
