A man in a green prison uniform, his face bleeding and wrists shackled behind his back, slouches on a medical examination table. A uniformed guard shoves an object into his mouth, while another grips his throat, and several more take turns beating him. They hit him all over his body. When he loses consciousness, they lift him by his collar and throw him against a window.

The killing of Robert Brooks at a central New York prison became a media sensation. Body-worn camera footage of the deadly beatdown, released in December, triggered a flurry of coverage, from local headlines to rolling cable news stories, directing national outrage at a state prison system that often evades scrutiny.

It caused a particular headache for the state prison commissioner, Daniel Martuscello III. A self-styled reformer, he responded to the public disgust by announcing a suite of initiatives aimed at reducing violence and holding abusive officers to account. Backlash followed, with the corrections officers union issuing a rare vote of no confidence against him last month. The following week, an annual budget hearing — normally a polite affair — saw the commissioner dodging activist protesters, escaping a gaggle of reporters, and fielding three hours of questions from horrified legislators.

Then, the guards went on strike. The state’s prisons locked down, threatening system-wide collapse. Like the activists, picketing corrections officers, convinced that Martuscello had abandoned them, called for his resignation.

This probably isn’t how Martuscello imagined his time as prison chief would go. Officially confirmed last May, he’d been the top job’s heir apparent for years. He’s the scion of a New York prison dynasty and came of age in the system, brought up by an ambitious, well-connected family that helped propel him to power.

That family has made enemies within the prison system, angering staff with what some describe as blatant nepotism. Still, the Martuscellos have risen through the prison agency ranks relatively unscathed. Amid turmoil, they’ve consolidated their influence.

A year-and-a-half-long New York Focus investigation reveals the story of the Martuscellos’ rise to power — not just Dan’s, but his father’s, brother’s, siblings’, in-laws’, and that of their friends across the prison system. Over decades, the family has built a patronage network so embedded in the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, or DOCCS, that staff have given it a name: the “friends and family” program.

The network’s actions have reverberated across the system, playing roles in some of the agency’s biggest scandals of the last decade: a sexual harassment investigation, mishandled drug evidence, a half-million-dollar lawsuit, a nationally infamous prison escape. Those connected to the Martuscellos have rarely faced consequences.

The favoritism is directly tied to a part of the system that enables officer abuse. For two decades, the main hub for the friends and family network has been the prison agency’s internal investigations office, which is responsible for investigating complaints of misconduct by DOCCS personnel. Traditionally staffed by former corrections officers, it allows the agency to police itself. Incarcerated people and advocates describe the office as a black box, quick to absolve officers and adept at keeping DOCCS wrongdoing out of the public eye.

The commissioner’s younger brother, Chris Martuscello, has spent most of his career in the internal investigations office. Around the time Dan rose to DOCCS’s top job, Chris was promoted to assistant commissioner and the office’s second-in-command. Some former staff who worked with Chris describe him as a hot-headed tyrant. They said he leads by threats and patronage — an approach he seemed to inherit from his father and family friends.

Dan, on the other hand, is the family’s suave politician. He’s become popular among the state government’s Democratic majority, giving the friends and family network the legitimacy it has needed to complete its DOCCS takeover. After the no-confidence vote, Governor Kathy Hochul came to Dan’s defense, saying that she’s “grateful to have Commissioner Martuscello leading the agency.”

His reformist rhetoric has also charmed some prisoners’ rights advocates, who say he’s as progressive as one can hope from the head of a sprawling 14,000-guard, 33,000-prisoner carceral system.

Others aren’t so sure. However well Dan speaks, his critics point out, little has meaningfully changed during his time at the top. As a deputy commissioner, he promised to reform the internal investigations office, to little noticeable effect. Brooks’s killing happened under his watch, as have other cases of abuse.

“The fish rots from the head,” said attorney Danielle Muscatello. She represents incarcerated victims of alleged officer violence, including a weeklong systematic beatdown that took place — with internal investigations staff allegedly watching — during Dan’s initial tenure as interim DOCCS commissioner. “Martuscello, the commissioners, they need to know that this is all happening under them.”

“He’s so hell bent on maintaining his position that he’s willing to say and do almost anything,” Rodney Young, a retired parole officer who organizes a fraternity of Black DOCCS employees, said of the commissioner.

How did the Martuscellos get to where they are? New York Focus traced the ruling prison family’s rise through thousands of pages of court records and internal state reports, leaked DOCCS memos and rosters, public records requests filed with multiple agencies, open source data, and testimony from current and former incarcerated people, advocates, and more than a dozen current and former DOCCS staff. Hundreds of pages of records date to the mid-2010s, when Dan and Chris were consolidating power — and when a state investigation threatened to topple their family dynasty. Neither Dan Martuscello, Chris Martuscello, nor DOCCS accepted interview requests or responded to multiple requests for comment.

Some of the former agency employees requested anonymity to avoid intimidation and harassment. They said the threat of retaliation is how the Martuscellos keep the heat off.

“You just mind your business,” one said. “Because if you ask questions and show that you’re onto something, you’re the next target.”

New York state is one step closer to banning fossil fuels in new buildings.

On Friday, the State Fire Prevention and Building Code Council voted to recommend major updates to the state’s building code, which is updated every five years and sets minimum standards for construction statewide. The draft updates include rules requiring most new buildings to be all electric starting in 2026, as mandated by a law passed two years ago.

The vote came after the code council went missing in action for more than two months, leaving some advocates nervous that the state might be wavering on the gas ban. With the rules now entering the final stage of the approval process, New York remains on track to be the first state to enact such a ban.

The new draft code also tightens a slew of other standards in a bid to make buildings more energy efficient and save residents money over the long term. But it leaves out several key provisions recommended in the state’s climate plan — possibly running afoul of a 2022 law.

Thousands of parents in New York City are set to lose state-provided child care assistance as soon as April, according to records obtained by New York Focus and interviews with advocates recently alerted to the upcoming funding cliff.

Unless Governor Kathy Hochul and the state legislature opt to put more money into the Child Care Assistance Program, New York City will soon start turning down new program applicants — even if their income qualifies them for the subsidies. Some families currently enrolled in the program will also lose their benefits when they try to recertify, which happens every six or 12 months.

The Administration for Children’s Services recently told child care advocates in a briefing document that 4,000–7,000 children will soon lose assistance each month, “as the City would have insufficient funds to recertify their care.”

If you’re planning on building a home with a gas boiler in New York, time is running out. Starting on January 1 next year, most new buildings across the state are required to be all electric.

Or at least that’s what state law says. But the mandate has yet to trickle down to most municipalities, which are in charge of approving permits for new construction.

That’s because New York has not updated its statewide building code — which sets minimum construction standards — to reflect the all-electric buildings law passed nearly two years ago.

The State Fire Prevention and Building Code Council is tasked with updating the code every five years to comply with new laws and safety standards. (The current edition dates back to November 2019.) The council was due to meet in early December to vote on a draft of the updated rules, but members never received the new draft and the meeting was postponed, twice. It is now scheduled for this Friday, February 28.