"They were more like roommates." In a special jail-within-a-jail called 10 South, alleged terrorists, mobsters and drug kingpins are subject to some of the most brutal conditions of solitary confinement in the nation. This extreme isolation, reserved for those charged with the most heinous crimes, was described as "a punitive measure that is unworthy of the United States as a civilized democracy," according to a former special monitor on torture and punishment for the United Nations who investigated the case of one prisoner held there for three years." "Hundreds of people indicted in the Southern District of New York, as well as many individuals indicted in the Eastern District, based in Brooklyn's federal court across the river, end up at the jail awaiting trial for federal offenses including drug-related crimes, fraud, bribery, and sex offenses. Defendants facing terrorism charges have spent more than three years at the facility, attorneys say. But even those facing less high-profile charges generally spend at least one or two years there before their criminal cases are resolved." New York attorney Joshua Dratel, who has represented clients at the notorious U.S. facility at Guantanamo, says "in some regards, MCC—particularly 10 South - is worse." Dratel said he has represented nearly a dozen people who have served time on 10 South, and countless others in MCC. He describes the prison as "soul-negating." "It's physically, mentally, psychologically, emotionally—as unaccommodating to the idea of being human as any place I've been," Dratel told Gothamist. Bruce Barket, a New York Attorney who has visited clients at MCC described the institution as "infested with rats and mold." He went on to state, "The Facility is run with a bad combination of laziness and cruelty," citing the Epstein death is one of the results. He describes the Special Housing Unit as "a place where an inmate sits in a box and stares at the wall." Jeanne Thesharis