An alleged would-be Donald Trump assassin with ties to Iran says he’s been held in a cold solitary confinement cell at the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn without warm clothing, and denied basic amenities like salt and pepper to season his food.
Asif Merchant has been locked up in the Special Administrative Measures, or SAMS, unit, on the eighth floor of the Sunset Park federal jail, since his arrest in July because federal officials fear he may pass information to his Iranian handlers or other potential killers on the outside.
Security is extremely tight — his food gets passed through a slot, correction officers aren’t allowed to open his cell door without a supervisor present, and lawyer meetings take place across a wall of thick glass.
But his lawyer, Avraham Moskowitz, says the conditions he’s held in go far beyond precaution and “are arbitrary and capricious and designed solely to make Mr. Merchant’s life at the MDC more miserable.”
Merchant has been barred from buying a sweatshirt or sweatpants from the jail commissary, and his lawyer and family members haven’t been allowed to send him one, even through Amazon or another retailer recognized by the jail, his lawyer said in a letter to Judge Eric Komitee.
“Mr. Merchant’s cell … is very cold and he often comes to attorney-client meetings shivering from cold,” Moskowitz said. “On the one occasion when Mr. Merchant was brought to the courthouse to meet with me and review discovery, he was so cold that he wore my winter coat throughout the meeting so he could warm up.”
At a Brooklyn Federal Court hearing Monday, Bureau of Prisons lawyer Sophia Papapetru said that a check on Friday showed his cell’s temperature was 69 degrees, and that he had thermals to wear.
Papapetru attended the hearing virtually, because of “pre-existing conflicts and the risk of inclement weather,” according to a filing by prosecutors.
“I can only describe what I’m experiencing, which is he comes in and he’s chattering, and obviously that’s a real problem,” Moskowitz said.
Papapetru said she was “digging a little deeper” into why sweats aren’t on the commissary list for SAMS inmates.
As for his food, Merchant was getting halal meals, but they made him ill, so he was allowed to switch to a vegetarian menu, the lawyer writes. But MDC staff won’t let him have salt and pepper, or any other spices to make his food bearable.
“These restrictions make no sense and certainly are not based on any security needs,” Moskowitz said.
When Papapetru said Merchant bought salt and pepper from the commissary on Dec. 19, the defense lawyer said, “It was brought to him and then immediately taken back, and he was told he’s not entitled to have it.”
Papapetru said she would “look into that.”
Outside the courtroom, Merchant’s lawyer said the correction officers offered no hint as to why they’d bring him the seasoning, only to tell him he couldn’t have it.
“There’s no real interaction,” he told the Daily News. “He doesn’t speak to anybody all day. They open the slot, they give it to him, or they don’t.”
The jail, which currently houses rap star Sean “Diddy” Combs as he awaits trial for sex trafficking and alleged CEO killer Luigi Mangione, has long been decried for its hellish conditions by judges, defense attorneys and inmates. Earlier this year, two inmates were stabbed to death just six weeks apart.
Merchant, a 46-year-old Pakinstani national, admitted he was recruited and trained by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp., or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to a memo by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco included in Moskowitz’s filing.
That training included “countersurveillance and other espionage tactics,” and he contacted his Iranian handler communicated through messages hidden in gift bags taken by others to Pakistan, and through encrypted phone app messages to a family member who served as a go-between, according to the memo.
Merchant is accused of trying to hire a hit man as part of a multiphase plot culminating in August or September. Though the criminal complaint against Merchant does not name the politician he wanted to kill, he floated Trump’s name as a potential target, a law enforcement source confirmed in August.
Iranian government officials have long wanted revenge for the death of one of the regime’s generals, Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad on Jan. 3, 2020 during Trump’s first term in office.
All Merchant’s training and tradecraft couldn’t stop him from making some dire errors, though — the person he reached out to for help with the plot when he came to the U.S. in April turned out to be a federal informant, and the two “hit men” he tried to hire in June were actually feds, according to court documents.
Merchant, who’s charged with attempted terrorism and murder-for-hire, could face life in prison if convicted.