NEWARK, N.J., Nov. 13 (UPI) -- A New Jersey defense lawyer facing federal murder charges cannot be kept in solitary confinement, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Judge William Martini said Paul Bergrin, who is being held in a windowless cell 23 hours out of 24, must be freed, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported. After a hearing in Newark, the judge ordered Bergrin confined with the general population at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he is awaiting trial.
"Mr. Bergrin is slowly but surely going crazy," his lawyer, Lawrence Lustberg, said. "He is distracted. He is unfocused. He is divorced from reality in certain ways."
Bergrin, a former assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey, was arrested in May on charges that included murder, racketeering and witness tampering. A new indictment this week adds drug charges.
A federal prosecutor suggested Bergrin could be a threat to other inmates but the judge disagreed. None of the inmates in Brooklyn are potential witnesses against him.
"Why is he in there? Solitary confinement for this length of time -- why? Nobody has been able to tell me that," Martini said.
