The Legal Aid announced the death of another client, Hector Rodriguez, who passed away last month while serving a one-year sentence at Rikers Island, reports THE CITY. Due to a decades-old conviction, Mr. Rodriguez, age 60, was required to register his home address with the State of New York by appearing in person at a monitoring facility every 90 days, as required by New York State’s punitive Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA) Laws.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office charged Mr. Rodriguez for failing to verify address – a SORA technicality – in October, 2019. He was convicted this past March and sentenced to a jail term in City custody. He received a one-year definite sentence but would have been released after eight months with good time credit.

“Prosecutors could have easily spared Mr. Rodriguez from this fate but deliberately chose not to,” said Eric Williams, Staff Attorney with Criminal Defense Practice at The Legal Aid Society. “As New Yorkers continue to protest NYPD brutality and racism, let us not forget the role of prosecutors in perpetuating a system that has long prayed on New Yorkers of color and the underserved.”