New Prison Chief Is a Son of the System

Yet Martuscello, eldest son of an Empire State prison dynasty, is even more rooted in the system. His family is established and ascendant, climbing DOCCS’s ranks while New York authorities take the agency to task.

Martuscello’s family has had particular influence among DOCCS’s embattled internal investigations department, which saw a series of scandals in the 2010s. A state investigation unearthed allegations that Martuscello’s brother, a former investigator and now assistant commissioner, tampered with his personnel records. (DOCCS said the allegations were “unfounded.”) When the agency overhauled the department, Martuscello became a public face of the agency’s attempts to fix itself.

It’s unclear what impact the agency’s attempted reforms have had: Media and state investigations suggest that DOCCS remains lax on corrections officer misconduct. Nor is it clear how long Martuscello will lead DOCCS. The title he assumed, “acting commissioner,” is legally temporary — but Annucci was able to keep it for a full decade. Governor Kathy Hochul’s office wouldn’t say when she planned to nominate a permanent successor, nor whether Martuscello is on the shortlist.

Julia Salazar, the chair of a key Senate committee that would consider a nomination, urged Hochul to look for outside leadership. Appointing “the second person in line, who’s been present for all of that stagnation … would be a disservice to the department,” she told New York Focus.

Some watchdogs who have worked closely with Martuscello expressed optimism about his tenure, however temporary. He “has been very forthcoming and receptive to our concerns,” said Karen Murtagh, executive director of Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York. Jennifer Scaife, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, described him as “accessible, forthright, extremely competent, and an effective communicator.”

“He knows DOCCS from top to bottom,” Scaife said.

Others see that as part of the problem. “This entrenched, maybe even inappropriate cross-family connection is frankly alarming,” said Serena Martin-Liguori, a former associate director at the Correctional Association and now executive director of New Hour, a support organization for women and children impacted by incarceration.

DOCCS pointed out that it’s common for law enforcement, particularly prisons, to be a family affair. But that fuels a culture of impunity, said Martin-Liguori, who attended monitoring visits for the Correctional Association and has been incarcerated in New York herself.

“I’ve seen it first hand,” she said. Abuse of incarcerated people often went unaddressed because “there were so many officers who were married to each other, related to each other. It’s almost impossible with that conflict of interest — the nepotism of it all creates the opportunity.”

In a statement, DOCCS said that the Martuscellos “have dedicated their lives to public service and are proud of their work in DOCCS.” The agency said that Martuscello has an affidavit on file that defers any “employment related matters” involving his family to the department’s general counsel.

Asked if the new chief would speak with New York Focus, DOCCS said, “We respectfully decline the interview.”

Martuscello kicked off his prison agency career as a corrections officer in 1997. Four years later, he moved to administration, eventually getting bumped to manage all personnel matters as director of human resources.

In 2014, scandal roiled DOCCS’s internal investigations department. The state inspector general and attorney general found that the office, tasked with uncovering prison agency misconduct, was mired in its own slew of sexual misconduct cases and coverups. Two Martuscellos were allegedly implicated.

According to records obtained by the Albany Times Union, a witness claimed that Christopher, then a deputy in the investigative department’s narcotics unit, had likely tampered with Martuscello’s personnel records in 2011, while state officials were vetting one of his promotions. DOCCS told New York Focus that the inspector general deemed those allegations “unfounded.”

In 2010, Daniel Jr., the father and then still Coxsackie superintendent, supposedly had a woman acquaintance whom he had hired sleeping in his office and sharing his parking space. When the witness, a member of the investigative office, sent someone to poke around, he said that Daniel Jr. berated him and told him that he could no longer file for overtime pay.

DOCCS investigated those allegations itself, finding the woman guilty of “time and attendance abuse,” for which she was fined $450, and parking in Daniel Jr.’s spot, the agency told New York Focus. She resigned before DOCCS could interview her about sleeping in his office, so those charges went “unsubstantiated.” DOCCS investigators found “no wrongdoing” on Daniel Jr.’s part.

Last month, the outlets published a follow-up. Their investigation found that DOCCS rarely tries to discipline officers who abuse incarcerated people: In nearly nine out of 10 cases where the agency paid cash to settle lawsuits over abuse, it made no attempt to discipline officers involved. When it did want to fire guards, the union overpowered it another nine out of 10 times.

In a statement, the union’s president, Michael Powers, told New York Focus that representatives “look forward to continuing the open dialogue” with Martuscello.

Staff conduct may not have changed, but the Martsucello family’s jobs had. In 2017, Martuscello became executive deputy commissioner, the agency’s penultimate position. By that year, one of his teacher siblings landed a job as a “training specialist” in the central office. And Catherine, the oldest sister, made even bigger leaps: from nurse and health education coordinator to DOCCS’s director of correctional nursing services.

The greater Martuscellos also rose through the new OSI. By 2015, Martuscello’s brother-in-law, then a Coxsackie corrections officer, had become a DOCCS investigator. Since last year, he was promoted to assistant deputy chief of OSI’s Sex Crimes Division, which investigates sexual misconduct between staff and incarcerated people.

And Christopher, who was accused of record tampering during his brother’s promotion a decade earlier, became an assistant chief of investigations.

By that point, DOCCS had again attracted the attention of state authorities for its internal accountability failures. In February 2022, Lucy Lang, Hochul’s appointee for state inspector general, created a new position to oversee the hundreds of yearly complaints her office receives about DOCCS.

Lang’s office investigates malfeasance among more than 100 agencies, commissions, authorities, and public benefit corporations; major state infrastructure projects; and welfare and gaming fraud. Even with that breadth of purview, 57 percent of the complaints the inspector general received in 2021 — the only full year for which such numbers are available — were related to DOCCS.

“It’s clear that an immediate and sustained response is needed,” Lang said at the time.

Lang’s office has since found worsening racial disparities in officer discipline of incarcerated people and likely instances of workers’ compensation fraud so rampant that they “outpace the resources available to combat them.”

DOCCS leadership, including Martuscello, has remained resistant to outside intervention. In March 2022, the state enacted a landmark reform law restricting the use of solitary confinement in prisons and jails. As a New York Focus series of investigations has shown, DOCCS has routinely violated nearly every major facet of the law. Martuscello has tried to rationalize the obstinance. In a hearing in February, when asked why the agency has been sending hundreds with mental illnesses to solitary in violation of the reform law, Martuscello misconstrued what the law dictates — a go-to tactic for the agency. Annucci, then in charge, sat back with his arms crossed.

In an earlier hearing — about sexual assault in prisons and jails — Martuscello hailed the staff of OSI’s Sex Crimes Division, of which his brother-in-law is now assistant deputy chief, as “some of the most experienced and well-trained investigators in the nation.” He blamed mandatory arbitration for keeping credibly accused officers on the job — but most cases never make it to that point.

Legislators are now considering a bill that would limit OSI’s powers of self-regulation and give the state inspector general the power to investigate prison sexual assault.