CNN
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The prison that music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs now calls home has been described as “repulsive” and the conditions there “appalling.” It has nothing to do with the mansions in Miami and Los Angeles where he used to live.

“When he wakes up, he finds himself staring at white-painted cinder block walls, unlike the decor of his mansions,” Michael Cohen, a former lawyer for President Donald Trump, told CNN on Wednesday.

Cohen should know. He is one of several high-profile inmates who have been locked up at New York City’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Center. The facility has previously held singer R. Kelly, “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli, socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, former cryptocurrency ace Sam Bankman-Fried and rapper Fetty Wap. Currently, alleged cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia is being held there while he awaits trial on murder and drug trafficking charges.

A federal judge denied Combs bail on Wednesday, saying his defense attorneys’ bail proposal was “inadequate” to address the court’s concerns. Judge Andrew Carter said there were “no or no conditions” that would reduce the risk of witness tampering or obstruction in Combs’ case. As a result, the entertainer must remain in federal custody until he stands trial on charges of conspiracy to commit organized crime and sex trafficking. Combs has pleaded not guilty.

Because the 54-year-old hip-hop artist’s trial date has not yet been set, it is unknown how long Combs will be held in the Brooklyn jail. However, after Wednesday’s bail denial hearing, his attorney said they would appeal the decision.

Notorious for poor living conditions, understaffing, inmate violence and power outages, the Brooklyn prison is currently the only federal prison in the nation’s largest city, after the Federal Bureau of Prisons closed its Manhattan complex shortly after the suicide of multimillionaire sex trafficking accused Jeffrey Epstein in 2019.

When asked about the current conditions at the MDC, a spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Prisons said the agency “takes its duty to protect the individuals entrusted to us seriously” and therefore “reviews security protocols and implements corrective actions as needed.”

The Bureau of Prisons appointed an Urgent Action Team earlier this year “to take a holistic look at the challenges at MDC Brooklyn,” spokesman Emery Nelson said in an email.

“The team’s work is ongoing, but it has already increased the facility’s permanent staff (including COs and medical staff), addressed over 700 overdue maintenance requests and provided a sustained focus on the issues raised in two recent court decisions,” Nelson said.

“It’s a very difficult place for an inmate,” Combs’ attorney Marc Agnifilo argued in court Wednesday, telling the judge that it would be difficult for his client to prepare for trial if he were housed there.

Built in the 1990s in response to overcrowding in New York City’s prisons, the Metropolitan Detention Center houses inmates awaiting trial in federal courts in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

“He wakes up on a steel bed with a 1.5-inch-thick mattress, no pillows, in an 8-by-10-foot cell that, I can assure you, is disgusting,” Cohen told CNN on Wednesday. Cohen, who was incarcerated at the prison in 2020, said prisoners in the facility’s special housing unit where Combs is housed essentially have only a 3-by-5-foot space to move around.

“There are no books to start with, so he’s really busy right now,” Cohen said of what to expect in Combs’ first days at the facility.

In June, an inmate awaiting trial on weapons charges, Uriel Whyte, was stabbed to death by another inmate, according to a Bureau of Prisons press release. A month later, inmate Edwin Cordero died in a fight that broke out in the prison. Cordero’s lawyer told the New York Times that his client was “another victim of MDC Brooklyn, an overcrowded, understaffed and neglected federal prison that is hell on earth.”

In January 2019, a prolonged power outage plunged the prison into crisis, leaving inmates in almost total darkness for a week and exposing them to the frigid temperatures that plague the Northeast. The incident prompted a Justice Department investigation to examine whether the Bureau of Prisons had “adequate emergency plans” to improve inmates’ living conditions. According to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the prisoners, inmates were reportedly locked in their cells for days at a time and had to endure non-functioning in-cell toilets and other unsanitary conditions.

Last summer, the prison service agreed to pay compensation totaling around ten million dollars to 1,600 inmates because they suffered icy and inhumane conditions in prison as a result of the power outage.