Top Rikers Island Jailers Logged Overtime Equal to 14-Hour Days With No Days Off
The top New York City Department of Correction (DOC) employees in 2024 overtime averaged over 40 extra hours weekly—enough to fill every week with 14-hour workdays all year, with no days off. For the year, DOC paid $283 million to employees who logged a total of 3.8 million overtime hours.
Assistant Deputy Warden Michael Hamilton, a 12-year DOC veteran, took home 2,344 hours in overtime pay worth $239,501, pushing his total for fiscal 2024 to $388,620. Capt. Bob Villette, an 18-year vet, logged 2,380 overtime hours for an extra $234,090 that boosted his pay to $376,708. Assistant Deputy Warden Olawamiri Otukoya earned $372,207, including $222,760 for 2,125 hours of overtime. Capt. Kenneth McMillan’s 2,380 overtime hours increased his pay by $214,929 to a total of $358,031.
DOC overtime in 2024 was down slightly from 2023, when staffers pocketed $294 million for 4 million extra hours. That was also the year that former guard James Internicola was indicted for overtime fraud, fudging his timesheet by four hours a day—often when he was on vacation at the Jersey shore or in Aruba, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Dec. 2023, p.63.] He resigned and pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges in January 2024. But when sentenced that August, he got just three weeks in jail time. He was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay $171,000 in restitution. See: United States v. Internicola, USDC (E.D.N.Y.), Case No. 1:23-cr-00531.
Additional source: New York Post
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