by Jo Ellen Nott

On November 10, 2022, three guards who work for the New York City Department of Correction [DOC] at Rikers Island were arrested on charges of federal program fraud. Steven Cange, Monica Coaxum and Eduardo Trinidad were named in criminal complaints announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of New York.  

In the two separate complaints, one for Cange and the other naming Coaxum and Trinidad, the U.S. District Attorney, the FBI, and the city Department of Investigation announced that the defendants allegedly “defrauded New Yorkers by fraudulently obtaining their full salaries while taking over a year of sick leave.”  

According to the New York Times, one in three guards was not reporting for work each day in late January 2022, creating a deadly dysfunction in Rikers Island operations.  The absenteeism allowed for conditions that created even more violence in the already hellish jail.

The death toll at Rikers Island over the last two years was the highest in nearly a decade. Guards who misused their union-negotiated sick leave policy to sit at home instead of going to work put their colleagues in dangerous situations due to a lack of staff to supervise detainees. 

Cange, 49, told DOC he had vertigo and side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine. Claiming he was too sick to work, he received more than $160,000 in salary between March 2021 and November 2002 – 20 months during which he submitted more than 100 allegedly fraudulent medical notes justifying his absence. 

During his paid time off, the guard was apparently producing and marketing his own comic book. On April 15, 2021, he announced its publication and met with fans – the same  day he claimed to be at a doctor’s appointment, according to prosecutors. Like his fellow defendants, Cange also talked about his sick time activity on social media. But law enforcement tailing him reported he engaged in everyday activities with no visible difficulty.  See: USA v. Cange, USDC (E.D.N.Y.), Case No. 1:22-mj-01204.

In a separate complaint, it was alleged that Coaxum, 36, obtained more than $80,000 in salary by fraudulently taking sick leave from March 2021 to May 2022. Trinidad, 42, who is her fiancée, is accused of collecting more than $140,000 in salary by fraudulently taking on sick leave from June 2021 to November 2022. 

Both were found by law enforcement to have been traveling, attending parties and doing home improvements while supposedly recuperating from injuries suffered on the job and elsewhere. Evidence collected by investigators included photos of the pair engaging in normal activities, as well as posts on social media about their easy life on paid sick leave. See: USA v. Coaxum, USDC (E.D.N.Y.), Case No. 1:22-mj-01203.

Additional sources:  New York Daily News, New York Times

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