A convicted robber who became a violent menace in the MDC Brooklyn federal jail got nine years behind bars for trying to kill a fellow inmate and punching a correction officer who offered him fruit with breakfast.
Leury Mojica, 22, took part in the bloody slay attempt on Feb. 28, 2023, just four months before his sentencing for three parking lot attendant robberies in the Bronx. Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Carol Bagley Amon handed down the sentence Monday.
He and five other inmates ganged up on their target in a housing unit that typically holds Trinitarios gang members, with video showing him swinging a sharp object and holding down the group’s target while an accomplice got to stabbing, according to court filings.
The victim survived the attack, but suffered cuts to his forehead and nose, puncture wounds to the right side of his face and lower back and arms, a posterior neck wound and several scrapes, the feds said.
A Manhattan Federal Court judge gave Mojica 5 years and 10 months for the robbery spree in June 2023, but he remained in the MDC as he awaited transfer. And on Aug. 24, 2024, he attacked a correction officer who asked him if he wanted fruit with his breakfast, punching the guard in the face.
Mojica’s bad behavior behind bars spanned years, the feds said, with more than 20 disciplinary infractions since 2022 for assault, weapon possession, setting fires and refusing to follow orders.
Mojical pleaded guilty to the assault on the correction officer, admitting to his role in the stabbing as part of the guilty plea.
“Today’s sentence makes clear that there are serious consequences for inmates who endanger the safety and security of the Metropolitan Detention Center by committing acts of violence against correction officers and other inmates,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said.
Mojica has about two years and change to go on his original robbery sentence. His lawyers were asking for a year and a day, while prosecutors sought 14 to 18 years.
“This is an individual who has shown that time after time he will use violence,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Berman said.
Mojica’s lawyers argued for leniency, saying he’d already been punished for the attempted murder because the Manhattan Federal Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein also considered the stabbing, and gave him 19 months more than the federal guidelines recommendations for the robbery spree.
“While housed at the MDC, some of his co- defendants and fellow inmates reached out to his family to report that Mr. Mojica’s mental health had deteriorated and they believed he was experiencing a mental health breakdown,” his lawyers wrote in a Sept. 8 filing. “They reported that he was hearing voices, talking to himself, and acting out in strange ways at the jail.”
His lawyer, Shannon Michael McManus, pointed out that Hellerstein asked he be sent to a facility where he could get mental health help.
“Instead, he was kept at MDC for an additional 14 months,” McManus said. “After 14 months, he punched a guard, and that is what brought us here.”
Lawyer Cesar de Castro, who also represents Mojica, said that MDC staff gave him “a shot and a pill every morning” instead of meaningful psychiatric treatment.
Mojica told Amon he wants to “change for the better.”
“I also want to find out what’s happened to me. I know myself,” he said. “I want to change…. I just want to get better, that’s all.”
Amon settled on nine years, to run consecutive to his robbery sentence, stating that while she would take into consideration Mojica’s mental health issues, his crime was “very, very violent — extremely serious conduct.”