#Violent Rikers inmate took physician hostage for 3 hours: lawsuit

A violent Rikers Island inmate awaiting trial for murder kidnapped and held hostage a physician’s assistant for three hours, threatening to “chew his face off,” according to a new Manhattan federal lawsuit.

Jorge Villalobos, a 30-year veteran of the notorious Queens jail’s medical clinic, filed the suit Thursday against the city, correction officers and the warden for putting him in the terrifying predicament by allegedly failing to observe basic safety protocols then waiting hours to call for assistance.

“Mr. Villalobos was held hostage in a locked room, while inmate Rodriguez threatened to kill, assault, bite, ‘chew his face off,’  smash his head in, and otherwise injure him,” attorney Jaehyun Oh wrote in the complaint.

Villalobos was working at the jail’s clinic Sept. 24, 2019, when he treated Peter Rodriguez, who is charged with stabbing his roommate to death over rent money.

Despite Rodriguez’s known violent propensities, including allegedly putting a physician in a headlock and sucker-punching another clinic staffer, the correction officers left Villalobos alone with the prisoner who was “only front-cuffed and not chained or shackled,” the suit alleges — referring to Rodriguez having only bound wrists.

Rodriguez followed Villalobos, then 58,  into a nursing station at about 12 p.m., asked for a glass of water then locked the door behind them.

Meanwhile, the two captains assigned to mind Rodriguez were chatting in the examination room and hadn’t noticed that their charge had vanished until “Mr. Villalobos started banging on the plexiglass window” of the nursing station for help, the papers say.

Several DOC officers rushed to the nursing station at about 1 p.m. and unsuccessfully tried to persuade Rodriguez to open the door.

During the standoff, Rodriguez repeatedly threatened Villalobos with an oxygen tank and asked where the scalpels were stored.

At one point Rodriguez allegedly told the correction staffers negotiating with him, “I’m going to fuck this n—a up if you don’t give me what I want.”

He then lifted a tank and said “I’m going to smash this n—a up, it’s going to be on you…I’m going to f–k this guy up…I don’t care if I kill him,” court papers say.

The physician’s assistant thought he was about to die, the complaint states.

“[Villalobos kept reciting Hail Marys, asking protection from God and then asking to die quickly,” according to the court filing.

At 2 p.m. the facility’s warden arrived but was “acting in a nonchalant manner, with her hands in her pockets” as she peered through the nursing station’s plexiglass window then left, the suit says.

The Emergency Services Unit was finally called in at 3 p.m. and resolved the situation in minutes. They told Rodriguez if he didn’t open the door in 30 seconds, they would bring the door down and he complied.

“Mr. Villalobos’ entire body was shaking,” the suit says. “He was unable to speak and short of breath.”

Villalobos charges that correction personnel “refused to seek” the assistance of emergency services for three hours for fear the incident would be made public. This prolonged the hostage situation and the psychiatric harm to Villalobos, the suit says.

“Mr. Villalobos suffers from debilitating posttraumatic stress disorder” that has required extensive therapy and has left him too scared to shower with the door closed, the filing states.

A spokesman for the city’s Law Department said it would “review this case.”

The Department of Correction didn’t immediately return a request for comment.