The otherwise healthy young man who died at Elmhurst Hospital after just over a week on Rikers Island had a ruptured appendix and a lacerated liver — suggesting either medical neglect in the jails or an assault, his family and their lawyer alleged Tuesday.
Ariel Quidone, 20, died Saturday at 6:31 p.m. after 14 attempts to resuscitate him following emergency surgery on Friday, his family said. Quidone had not been produced from Rikers for a court date last Wednesday and the family says they were stonewalled by correction officials over the next roughly 40 hours until Friday morning, when they searched his name and found he had been moved to the hospital.
They did not know at that moment that one day before, on Thursday about 4:30 p.m., Quidone had collapsed at the Robert N. Davoren Center. Correction staff tried to revive him over 45 minutes but he was transported out in grave condition, correction sources said.
Ariel Quidone (inset), 21, was suffering from a serious infection when he went into severe medical distress Thursday in a jail on Rikers Island. (AP; Obtained by Daily News)
Quidone entered the jails in good physical condition, so his sudden death after just eight days is a devastating outcome for his extended family who gathered Tuesday at their lawyer’s office.
“We want answers and we are angry,” said his sister, Kaylin Quidone. “He was a healthy 20-year-old kid who had no medical conditions that we were aware of. A healthy kid. Gone in nine days.”
After a year with only five deaths, the city jails have now seen three in just under a month in 2025, less-than-positive news for an institution facing the likelihood a federal judge will appoint an outside receiver to run the system.
As in Quidone’s case, the deaths of Ramel Powell, 38, on Feb. 19 and Terence Moore, 55, on Feb. 24 also show signs of systemic breakdowns, though the official cause of death in each case has yet to be disclosed, two oversight reports released Tuesday show.
In Powell’s case, security video shows that correction officers took no action from about 7:15 p.m. Feb. 18 when they saw a crowd of detainees gather outside a cell that Powell was in. One detainee then carried Powell from that cell to the cell assigned to him, a Board of Correction report states.
Hours passed. Officers and even two supervisory captains conducted tours but still did not take action. Finally, at 1:47 a.m., a captain called for medical assistance. Narcan was administered and a medical team tried CPR.
Staff placed a white sheet over his body at 2:20 a.m. Later, a sheet of synthetic marijuana known as K-2 — illegal contraband — was found in his cell.
In the aftermath, DOC suspended the floor officer assigned to the unit, the report said.
Moore, meanwhile, was somehow able to get ahold of drugs in a holding cell at Manhattan court where he had been taken from Rikers for a hearing, the BOC report on his death states. Witnesses saw him smoking from some kind of “paraphernalia” before he collapsed and started vomiting. Correction staff and medics tried CPR and gave him two doses of narcan but he died at 4:20 p.m.
None of it was caught on camera because unlike the jails, the Manhattan court pens don’t have video surveillance, the report said.
Both men had been transferred from jail to jail numerous times over the roughly two years they had been held. Powell had been moved 29 times, while Moore had been moved 38 times.
Ariel Quidone, meanwhile, was arrested March 6 on robbery charges. He lived in the Vladeck Houses on the Lower East Side with his grandmother and legal guardian Zoila Iglesias but was in touch with his birth mom and also raised by “a village of brothers and sisters,” his sister said.
Ariel Quidone with his mother Kim Quidone. (Courtesy of family)
“He was fine, healthy, there was nothing out of the ordinary,” said Iglesias, the last family member to see him alive. “He was always a happy kid.”
On Tuesday, March 11, he called Iglesias and told her he was scared for his safety and was being threatened, but did not detail the source of the threats, Kaylin said.
The next day, the family gathered in the courtroom to see him, but he didn’t appear. They learned he had never been brought over from Rikers Island, Kaylin said. The case was put off until Tuesday.
She called 311, which patched her to a DOC official in patient relations. “He wasn’t in the system as being a medical case,” she said.
Quidone died at Elmhurst Hospital after just over a week on Rikers Island. (AP)
On Thursday morning, she looked him up and saw he was still at the Davoren Center. On Friday morning, she looked again and saw he was at Elmhurst.
“Obviously, something occurred in the jail whether by trauma or through a medical issue,” said the family’s lawyer Scott Rynecki.
Kaylin Quidone said she rushed to the hospital and finally got in to see him. “He looked like he was gone. His body was purple, he was unrecognizable,” she said.
“They said he had injuries to his stomach that were unexplainable. His stomach was swollen.”
The emergency surgery took place Friday afternoon. Around 4:30 p.m., they were told via a text Ariel had been “released” from DOC custody.
The doctor who performed the surgery said he had a ruptured appendix and lacerated liver along with an extensive infection in his abdomen. His prognosis was grim.
The series of resuscitations followed but he died Saturday evening.
“When someone gets that type of infection, you’re in enormous pain and have a high fever and delirium,” Rynecki said.
“You’re not walking out of the cell to go to meal. It’s very possible they could have been ignoring him and didn’t get him the proper medical care.”
Quidone’s official cause of death has yet to be determined.
The DOC declined to comment on all three cases, citing ongoing investigations.