A federal judge reportedly apologized on Monday to accused White House Correspondents’ Dinner attacker Cole Tomas Allen for how he has been treated in jail.
After his April 25 arrest, Allen was temporarily put on suicide watch in restrictive conditions, according to his attorneys. They said this meant being confined in a padded room in straitjacket-like restraints, while being subject to around-the-clock lighting and repeated strip searches.
“At a minimum, I should be apologizing to him,” Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui reportedly said during a hearing on Monday. “We are obligated to make sure he’s taken care of. Mr. Allen, I’m sorry that things have not been the way they are supposed to.”
“To me, it’s extremely disturbing that he was put in five-point restraints, a person with no criminal history,” the judge reportedly added, arguing that even people accused of storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, hadn’t faced such conditions. “It’s troubling. I never heard of one Jan. 6 defendant who was put in five-point restraints or in a safe cell. If the only way to keep him safe is the most punitive thing, that’s a problem.”
Over the weekend, Allen, 31, was taken off suicide precautions, according to his attorneys. Still, Judge Faruqui demanded the parties return to court on Monday to address the detention conditions, writing in a Sunday order of his “grave concerns” about Allen’s “seemingly unprompted solitary confinement for days.”
A jail psychiatrist evaluated Allen and initially concluded that he posed a risk to himself, Tony Towns, acting general counsel for the Washington, D.C., corrections department, told the court on Monday.
“Every case is different, your honor,” he said.
Allen, who is accused of trying to assassinate Trump administration officials at the dinner, told FBI agents he didn’t expect to survive the attack, a Justice Department prosecutor said in court on Monday.
The court has ordered an update regarding Allen’s jailhouse conditions by Tuesday morning.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated with new information.
