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Case 1:20-cr-00330-AJN Document 18 Filed 07/10/20 Page 10 of 26

prior detention order based in part on the risks brought on by COVID-19. At the time, COVID-
19 had only begun to take its devastating toll on New York, and there was no known outbreak in
the prison population. Nevertheless, the Court noted that “inmates may be at a heightened risk of
contracting COVID-19 should an outbreak develop,” and, based in part on this changed
circumstance, ordered the defendant released. Id.

Since the Court issued its opinion in Stephens, the COVID-19 risks to inmates have
increased dramatically, as there have been significant outbreaks of COVID-19 in correctional
facilities. In the last month alone, the number of prison inmates known to have COVID-19 has
doubled to 68,000, and prison deaths tied to COVID-19 have increased by 73 percent. 1 Indeed,
as of July 2, 2020, nine of the ten largest known clusters of the coronavirus in the United States
are in federal prisons and county jails. 2 As this Court noted last month, “the ‘inability [of]
individuals to socially distance, shared communal spaces, and limited access to hygiene
products’ [in correctional facilities] make community spread all but unavoidable.” United States
v. Williams-Bethea, No. 18-CR-78 (AJN), 2020 WL 2848098, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. June 2, 2020)
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The risks are further enhanced by the possibility
of a second wave of coronavirus cases. 3

In particular, COVID-19 has begun to spread through the Metropolitan Detention Center
(MDC), where Ms. Maxwell has been housed since the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) transferred her
there on July 6, 2020. According to the MDC’s statistics, as of April 3, 2020, two inmates and

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1 Timothy Williams, et al., Coronavirus Cases Rise Sharply in Prisons Even as They Plateau Nationwide, N.Y.
Times, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/us/coronavirus-inmates-prisons-jails.html (last updated
June 30, 2020).
2 Coronavirus in the U.S: Latest Map and Case Count, N.Y. Times, available at
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html#clusters (last updated July 2, 2020).
3 See, e.g., Audrey Cher, WHO’s Chief Scientist Says There’s a “Very Real Risk” of a Second Wave of Coronavirus
As Economies Reopen, CNBC, June 9, 2020, available at https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/10/who-says-theres-real-
risk-of-second-coronavirus-wave-as-economies-reopen.html.

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