The son of wealthy Manhattan parents who pleaded guilty in the college admission scandal says he spent more than a week behind bars at the notorious Rikers Island jail because his father called police on him and then refused to bail him out.
Malcolm Abbott, 22, says his father, Gregory Abbott, called the police after his son allegedly pushed, kick, bit him and slapped him with a ruler at their Fifth Avenue home on May 18.
Malcolm Abbott says that during his arrest, police officers roughed him up and mocked him by quoting from his rap album, Cheese and Crackers.
‘They used excessive force,’ he said.
‘They were quoting my rap lyrics too…they were like “good cracker”.’
He told the New York Post that his father was so angry that he refused to bail him out, leaving him on Rikers Island for eight days.
Malcolm Abbott, 22, the son of wealthy Manhattan parents who pleaded guilty in the college admission scandal, spent eight days in jail for allegedly hitting his father with a ruler
Eventually, a friend of Malcolm Abbott paid the $1,500 bail which sprung him from jail.
As punishment, he will be required to take anger management classes.
Malcolm Abbott denied hitting his father. He would not say what instigated the argument.
But he doesn’t hold a grudge because his experience behind bars could benefit his budding rap career.
‘At the end of the day, they got me famous, so I am really not mad at them,’ Abbott said of his parents.
He is due back in court on June 25.
Abbott, whose rapper name is ‘Billa,’ says that his time at Rikers is inspiring his hip-hop, which he says will be ‘socially conscious music’ about mass incarceration.
‘Rikers is the pinnacle of injustice,’ he said, though he added that he was treated well by the guards ‘since I’m a white person.’
The jail on Rikers Island, the 413-acre island to the north of LaGuardia Airport, is known as one of America’s most troubled correctional facilities.
Last year, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio presented a plan to shut down the jail in a process that is expected to play out over a period of up to 10 years.
But a New York state agency is recommending a speedier timeline for the jail’s closure due to a rise in ‘violent incidents and degrading conditions.’
Abbott says his parents refused to bail him out of Rikers Island (above), the notorious New York City jail
His parents may soon have a similar experience behind bars.
Gregory Abbott, 68, founder and chairman of a food and beverage packaging company, and his wife Marcia Abbott, 59, were named in a federal affidavit along with 50 high-profile names, including Lori Loughlin of Full House and Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman, accused of buying their children’s way into prestigious colleges.
The couple, who have homes in New York City and Aspen, Colorado, allegedly paid a total of $125,000 to have someone alter their daughter’s ACT and SAT test scores so she could gain entrance to Duke University.
According to the affidavit, the Abbott Family Foundation made a ‘charitable donation’ of $50,000 to KWF in April 2018, four days before the Abbotts’ daughter took the ACT in Los Angeles.
The exam was proctored by a fixer identified in court documents as Cooperating Witness 2, who corrected her answers after she finished, prosecutors say.
She received a score of 35 out of 36 on that exam.
A couple months later, Marcia Abbott called William ‘Rick’ Singer, the alleged organizer of the scheme, about paying to arrange someone to take SAT subject tests for her daughter.
Gregory Abbott (right), 68, founder and chairman of a food and beverage packaging company, and his wife Marcia Abbott (left), 59, have pleaded guilty in the college admissions scandal
That conversation was intercepted by investigators under a court-ordered wire tap, the affidavit states.
Singer told her: ‘[Gregory Abbott] would have to be willing to pay for it,’ to which she replied: ‘Yeah, well he can donate, I mean, whatever the donations are.’
They agreed on a price of $75,000 during that call as the SAT subject tests are significantly more challenging than the ACT.
Marcia Abbott contacted Singer again in September 2018 to arrange for someone to take the math and literature subject tests for her daughter because she thought she hadn’t done well enough taking the tests on her own.
In a wiretapped phone call, Marcia Abbott said: ‘She’s convinced that she bombed the lit because she was too tired, so … And [Duke University] told us they didn’t want anything below a 750.’
Malcolm Abbott says he is worried about how his parents would fare in prison if they are eventually sentenced.
‘I’m worried a little about it,’ he said. ‘They have the strength.’